"Buy me dinner first," Herakles replied.
Ridan moved to hug Raphael, who politely pushed him away. "You're not my type, sorry."
"Jeez, you're still a grade-A jerk," Ridan grumbled.
Amal and Amane came forward, both of them silently staring at the Reapers. They'd only seen the one who represented the Reapers from the Stravian sanctuary, and none of them were First Tenners like our eerie friends. I could honestly understand their fascination with these creatures. Had it not been for our urgent Hermessi situation, I was sure we would've spent most of our days gawking at Reapers who revealed themselves to us like this.
"It's a pleasant surprise," Amane eventually said. "Welcome, all."
Seeley nodded. "Thank you for keeping a dragon around. I don't often come across one in my line of business," he replied, giving Ridan a broad smile. "You fellas are hard to kill, I'll give you that."
"But not impossible," Soul added, his galaxy eyes narrowed, as if he were contemplating the challenge.
"I swear, if you weren't dead already, I would kill you just for the fun of it," Herakles replied, crossing his arms, making Ridan chuckle.
"Aw. He does love me," the dragon joked.
"How can we help?" Amal asked, utterly amused by these exchanges between Ridan, Raphael, and Herakles. The three had a long-running history since before the Blackout. "I presume you're here because you're in need of assistance?"
Taeral took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Yeah. So, you probably know by now that Death has gone missing, which presents us with quite a conundrum."
The twin Faulties' shoulders sagged. Sadness darkened their bright orange eyes, and they both tucked locks of white hair behind their ears. They were identical in almost everything, including their reflexive movements—yet their characters were surprisingly different. One of them had fallen in love with a dragon, for starters.
"We heard," Amane said. "I am sorry. What can we do?"
"Not much, actually, unless you have a way to find Death, which you certainly don't. And that's okay," Taeral replied. "We just need a place to get our crap together. To figure out what we're going to do next."
"According to the Hermessi, the ritual will likely be completed in less than a day," I said, trying to keep an even tone of voice and failing miserably. There was no easy way to explain how close we were to the total annihilation we'd struggled so hard to avoid. "We can't operate unless we have a plan."
"And to have a plan, we just need a little bit of peace and quiet. The Reapers figured Strava might be a good place to start, since—and you're gonna love this—it used to be a favorite haunt of Death's." Varga chuckled.
Amal smirked. "Should we consider it an honor?"
"Since you weren't alive when she was walking this world, yeah," Soul replied. "I doubt you would have liked it much if you had been."
"Why would you tell them something like that?" Widow muttered. "You're making her look bad."
"She made herself look bad, with her whims and tantrums and constant mind-changing." Soul scoffed. "I love our maker, obviously, but let us not clutch our pearls here. Death is anything but perfect."
"I am," Raphael cut in.
Amane cleared her throat. "Perfect or not, do you know where to find her?" she asked Soul, who shook his head. "So, then, your input regarding her personality is totally useless."
"Kelara!" Seeley exclaimed, straightening his back as he stared into the void. "Yes… Yes, I'm with them. We got Thieron." I understood then that Kelara had gotten in touch through their telepathic connection, just like Seeley had said. I had to admit, this guy was definitely reliable, as far as I could tell. I could trust him with my life. I couldn't say the same thing about Widow, Soul, or Phantom, but it was better than nothing. One truly good Reaper out of four was better than none. "Where are you?" He paused, then smiled. "We're on Strava, inside their GASP base. You'll feel us as soon as—"
Three more Reapers appeared in the middle of the lab. One of them, a female, wore a black suit with a white shirt and tie, similar to Seeley's uniform. The other two were weird twins—their physical features mostly identical. The sister had long white hair and tanned skin. The brother had black hair, and he was paler than a vampire.
"That was quick," Seeley said.
"Dream! Nightmare!" Soul exclaimed, clearly thrilled to see the twins, whom we had identified by now as two of the remaining First Ten. Dream and Nightmare.
"Sorry, I got caught up," Kelara replied, pointing her thumbs at her companions. "They weren't easy to bring along."
"Oh, man, you two are a sight for sore eyes!" Widow blurted.
Before any of us could blink, the First Tenners were engaged in a series of long reunion hugs and laughter, as they were back together again after millions, if not even billions, of years. They'd certainly lost track of time, by the looks of it.
Seeley shook Kelara's hand respectfully. "Good to see you made it out of there alive."
"Well, 'alive' is a pretty relative term for us, isn't it?" Kelara replied, the corner of her mouth twitching. She gave Taeral a brief glance, noticing Thieron strapped to his thigh. "Where's Phyla?" she asked.
Taeral took out Thieron. The black iridescent gemstone glimmered gently in its blade. "All set… Though, to be honest, I have a feeling it won’t do much in my hands, as opposed to Death’s."
"Either way, good job," Kelara said, truly impressed. "You've surpassed our expectations. Now, we need to talk."
"What happened out there?" Seeley asked her. "I tried to reach you before."
"I know. I was busy not getting my dreams eaten by these maniacs," she said, scowling at Dream and Nightmare, who were simply too thrilled to be reunited with their brethren. "Upside is that I did find out who the traitor is. I was with him, and I didn't even know it."
The First Tenners stilled, as Phantom, Soul, and Widow frowned at Dream and Nightmare. "What do you know about that?" Phantom asked the Reaper twins.
"It's Spirit Bender," Kelara said.
The name rang a bell. We'd heard about him before, but we knew little to nothing about him. The only ones who could tell us more about the Spirit Bender were the five First Tenners in the room. Three of them were blank with astonishment, while the other two had stiffened with anger. I hadn’t seen such a display of emotions on Reapers before. Not at this intensity, anyway.
But having a name for the traitor who'd been helping Brendel felt like a huge step ahead. As shocking as it was to those who hadn’t expected the Spirit Bender—or any other Reaper, for that matter—to be involved in the Hermessi's affairs, knowing who he was could bring us closer to Death.
We'd already theorized that the culprit might've been responsible for Death's disappearance. So… what if we could find her through him?
Vesta
The moment we'd all been dreading was already upon us.
Not only had the sanctuary been elevated from the ground and isolated from GASP, but our life-chain links were beginning to fade irreversibly, and no amount of contact between our spirits could fix this. Worst of all, the fae were beginning to die off. Two dozen had already been completely separated from their spirits, the life-chains blackened and snapped off.
We'd had little time or energy left to cope with this or even accept that it was happening. The best we could do was struggle to stay calm and not lose our minds. Needless to say, our hearts were broken. Staring into the abyss was not something I would've wished on anyone, not even the worst of our enemies.
In the meantime, as the fae in the sanctuary continued to die, their spirits crying inconsolably by their Reapers' sides, the Novaks and I decided to do a survey of the sanctuary and everything that was going on outside. Rudolph had been kind enough to describe all that he saw through the windows as the winds continued howling around the sanctuary.
Our morale was at critical levels, but we simply couldn't stand back and accept our fate. Not now, not ever. At least a handful of us would go down resisting and swinging until the last breath.
"Notice how our bodies are glowing brighter than ever," Caia said, staring at hers as concern twinkled in her blue eyes.
Ben glanced around the room. "I don't think we've got much longer. Not because the fae are beginning to die off, but because this is definitely the final stage before the ritual is completed. I doubt we have more than a day left in this world."
"The air feels different," Vita added, her eyebrows furrowed. She was onto something. I felt it, too. Thickened with foreign energy, the kind that foreshadowed nothing but death and destruction. The ritual was so close to wrapping up that we could all sense it.
"I doubt it's the Earth and Air Hermessi keeping the sanctuaries up," Rudolph said as he came back to us, rubbing the back of his neck. "They'd have to spend a considerable amount of time focusing on this process, and I doubt it's what they're supposed to be doing."
"What do you mean?" Kailyn asked. I worried about her the most. The last link on her life-chain was fading from a bright amber to a pale yellow. She didn't have much left, and we already understood that some of us might die before the last of the five million fae fell under the Hermessi's influence.
"I think it's an automated spell of sorts," Rudolph explained. "They're powerful enough to pull it off now. You see, GASP rescued the Hermessi children from Brendel, so for the likes of Wei, this planet's Earth elemental, there is no point in cooperating with the ritual if he doesn't want to. He'd be more inclined to be on your side, not Brendel's. I have a feeling it applies to the other Calliope Hermessi, as well. So, with that in mind, they wouldn't be lifting the sanctuary off the ground."
"Truth be told, I do remember River saying the Hermessi rebels' ranks had thickened since their children were rescued," Lucas replied. "And it makes sense for the sanctuaries to be simultaneously lifted through a spell, especially since the Hermessi have access to insanely ancient knowledge. If they could come up with the ritual, they could've easily engineered this sanctuary-in-the-sky crap, too."
"Does it even matter?" Grace murmured, letting a deep sigh out as she leaned against her crystal casing. "We don't know where Taeral is, or whether he made it. Meanwhile, the Hermessi continue with their ritual, literally killing millions of us off before they wipe out entire civilizations."
The desolation in her voice broke my heart—not because I didn't feel it, too; we all did. But Grace was the most vocal about it, and the tears streaming down her cheeks made it all worse. Her spirit wasn't crying, but her body was, as if reacting to her emotions. Her eyes were closed inside the crystal casing, yet we could all see the tears twinkling.
"If there is one thing that has made us push through, no matter what, it's our ability to stare death in the face and postpone our appointment with it," Lucas said. "Look at your father and me. We did the unimaginable. We made our way back."
Ben put his arm around Grace’s shoulders. Vita and Caia stayed close, as well, but their mother could not be swayed. "Easy to say, but look at our Reapers," Grace replied. Glancing around, the only one who even dared to look us in the eye was Rudolph, probably because he'd been busy looking after Ben, Vita, and me. Too busy to let the situation bring him down. Tomassin, Malleus, and the others, however, looked downright glum. "They've lost hope. They're not saying anything. They know what's coming."
Sidyan stepped forward. "It's because we know more than you."
"What do you mean?" I asked, a sense of panic creeping up my spine.
"Sid, don't," Tomassin advised him.
"See? I told you," Grace said, shaking her head. "I don't even need to know what it is to understand how screwed we all are."
"What are you talking about?" Lucas asked Sidyan, equally concerned.
Looking at my substitute Reaper, I realized that he, too, knew more than us. I didn't like that. "Rudolph, what is it that we're missing here?"
"Death has gone missing," Sidyan replied, visibly upset. "Your friends got Thieron back. All of it. But Death is nowhere to be found."
"How the hell do you know that?!" Ben croaked.
"Seeley told me." Rudolph sighed. "It was a brief telepathic transmission. I felt it my duty to tell the other Reapers, as well. We all deserve to know what's happening."
"And so do you," Sidyan added, looking at me. "We honestly don't know where this will lead. Death stopped the ritual before, over and over. We've never made it this far into the challenge. It's uncharted territory, even for the Reapers."
"We all thought we would do our jobs, no matter what," Malleus said. "As the ritual draws near to its end, however, I have to admit… I'm seriously doubting that this is the right thing to do. That you die, and that the Hermessi get their stupid do-over."
"It's not right at all," Rudolph muttered.
It struck me then that the Reapers were as lost as the rest of us. They were conflicted, no longer certain that the rules they'd been following throughout their existence were right in this particular case. Then again, what could they do? Reapers were agents of Death, bound in her service, with limited powers against the Hermessi. And if their creator was missing, the one entity who could put an end to all this, where did it leave them?
The irony was glaring enough to sting. Taeral and his crew had done the impossible. They'd completed the Thieron challenge, and now, Death had gone AWOL. How could this be? What kind of universe was this to allow such atrocities to take place?
"No matter what happens, at least we're not facing it alone," Vita ultimately said, giving her mother, her sister, and her grandfather a warm smile. "At least we're in this together."
"This is not the life I wanted for you," Ben replied.
"No one wanted this," Lucas interjected.
Thinking of Zeriel still out there somewhere, desperate to get back to me, I couldn't bring myself to surrender to the fear that had been circling me like a hungry vulture for days. Deep down, I knew Grace felt the same way. Lawrence wanted her back. He wanted their daughters back, too, and so did their husbands. Caia and Vita had children of their own who needed their mothers. River missed Ben. Not to mention his sister, Rose, who was spearheading GASP into any mission that could delay or prolong this stupid, horrible ritual.
But Vita was right, too. We were not alone in the darkness. We were together, and as long as our consciousness continued to exist, we could at least choose the way we'd go out of this world. I, for one, had no intention of crying or pleading for my life. Such endeavors would've fallen on deaf ears, anyway.
The sanctuary's hum grew louder, broken glass tinkling on the floor as the entire structure trembled mildly. Chances were this would end in tears and death, but it wasn't over yet. A part of me kept rooting for Taeral and his team. I knew they wouldn't surrender, either. They would scour the entire universe, if needed, until they found Death.
River
The evening set over Calliope in shades of gray and purple. A full moon rose over the woodlands surrounding Luceria, shadows sprawling across. Lights twinkled from the Mount Zur base, but few agents remained there. All the cult members had been left behind, with crystal casings on their hands and their cells locked down. We had our own people to worry about, and the Hermessi's followers were practically rooting for the end of the world, so there was absolutely no reason to bother with them.
The sanctuary could be seen in the distance, humming softly in the air. It was enveloped in darkness, but for the mild glow of the fae bodies inside. An emptiness worked its way through my stomach, scratching at the walls and spreading into a troublesome heat wave in my chest.
There was silence in the halls of Luceria. Most of the castle's inhabitants had been evacuated and dispatched farther east, along with the people who'd dwelled in the nearby camps and villages. We'd done our best to try to get them as far away from the sanctuary as possible—a protocol enacted across the entire GASP federation.
Only agents remained in Luceria, along with Draven and Serena. Jovi, Anjani, Jax, and Hansa had gone out to guide the refugees away from the area, but they would com
e back to Luceria as soon as they were done. I had Lawrence, Bijarki, Blaze, Marion, and Aiden with me, and Brock, Arwen, Kailani, and Hunter had also decided to stick around. The rest of our officers had either fallen back to The Shade or were wrapping things up on Mount Zur.
The mood was black and heavy with grief as we stood on Luceria's platform, wondering how long before it would all end. By now, we'd all been informed of Taeral's issue with finding Death. The irony of the situation did not escape me: they'd gone through virtual hell to find Thieron's pieces and bring them back to Death, only to find her absent, her whereabouts unknown.
All I could think of was how close my husband, our daughter, our granddaughters and friends were to death, while we waited here for… I wasn't even sure anymore.
"They've reached Strava," Marion said to me. "They're with Amane and Amal. Kelara got there, as well. They're working out a strategy."
"For what, exactly?" Bijarki grumbled, his jaw locked and ticking nervously as he stared at the sanctuary in the twilight.
"To find Death," I said, knowing exactly where Bijarki’s head was. Truth be told, I was one of the few people in the world who understood his pain and frustration. I'd lost Ben before, and I stood to lose him again before tomorrow's end, at the latest. "He's not giving up, and neither should we."
Zeriel sat on the stone floor, crossing his legs as he watched the blanket of stars settle over the darker parts of the sky. "Remember when defeating Azazel was our biggest problem? Life was simpler back then. The bad guy was obvious. We knew who we were fighting; we had an idea as to what he could do and how we could stop him. At most, it was just Eritopians whose lives were at stake. When did it all become so… big?"
"Neraka was more or less the same, if you think about it. We had the Exiled Maras and Shaytan," Blaze replied, pacing the entire platform in a bid to keep himself calm. "Looking back, it all seems so insignificant."
"Our first taste of evil's penchant for grandeur came with Ta'Zan," Kailani said, slowly leaning into Hunter, who gave her a soft smile. "When we understood that he was ready to subjugate an entire universe, we began to think on a cosmic level. We could spend the rest of the night wondering how we got to this point, but we won't get an answer. It just happened. We awakened a greater force to stop Ta'Zan, and now they've turned against us."
A Shade of Vampire 77: A Fate of Time Page 4
