"Yeah, sorry about that," Phantom said. "We didn't want other Reapers to know it could be done."
"You people are absolute creeps!" Riza shot back, scowling at her.
Soul chuckled. "Take it down a notch. We've been out for a very long time."
"It's still wrong! Using spirits as your personal weapons!" Riza replied.
Lumi let a deep sigh out, which sounded more like a frustrated groan. "Enough with these petty skirmishes. We can hash out these details later, and I'm sure Death will have something to say about specters, too. In the meantime, we don't seem to be getting any closer to her."
I motioned for everyone to stop for a few moments. My calves burned. I hadn’t covered such distances on foot in quite a while. Teleporting had had its perks. "We need to reevaluate what we're doing here," I said. "We're wasting precious time, and I thought Soul's tracking spell would help us avoid that."
The Soul Crusher gave me a disappointed pout. "I thought so, too. I did not plan for this to take so long, I promise."
"Why, though? Why are we so slow?" Raphael asked him.
Herakles took out a water flask and passed it around. I gulped from it with a thirst I hadn’t even realized I'd had, and the liquid cooled me down as it rolled down my throat. Passing the flask to Eira, I smiled. "How are you holding up?"
She tried to return the smile but couldn't. "My patience is running thin."
"Join the club, sister!" Soul said, visibly irritated. "I don't know why my tracking spell isn't working. Or maybe Death is just really far away from our entry point! I know she's here because my scythe wouldn't react this way if she weren't."
"I suppose we should just keep moving," Widow suggested, trying to maintain a neutral stance. Phantom was more on the impatient side, with the rest of us, as she scowled at Soul and his glowing scythe.
Soul, in turn, was not willing to take the hit. "I'm doing the best I can! Pardon me for not having a fix-all solution."
"Out of all that death magic in your arsenal, you really don't?" Varga asked him.
Around us, gnarly old trees twisted toward the sky, their blue bark making them look as though they'd been painted as scenery in a children's fantasy movie. The leaves were long and purple, velvety to the touch. They formed thick enough crowns to allow our vampires to move freely, without hoods or masks—which was nice, for a change, because I could see exactly how frustrated they were with this situation, too.
"No, I don't, Prince Snarky,' Soul replied. "I told you before. Stop relying on magic to fix everything. Hell, stop relying on your abilities to do everything. Look at Taeral. The poor lad's out of breath from walking!"
"You're exaggerating," I muttered.
"Am I, though?"
"You're incorrigible," Nethissis grumbled, giving Lumi a pleading look. "Can we help Soul in any way to maybe… I don't know, speed things up a bit?"
Back on our home planets, the number of affected fae had not stopped rising. Every hour, another fae would fall. Our time was running out—the irony in the Time Master going missing along with Death did not escape me. I'd simply chosen to look past it, because despair had already been gnawing at my insides.
"Our magic is of the living. The Word does not work with the dead," Lumi replied. "You must keep that in mind when speaking to Reapers. We deal in life. They deal in death. It's how it's always been. How it always will be."
The Soul Crusher gasped. "Hold on, I got something! I got something!" He squealed like a teenage girl who'd just gotten asked out to prom by her crush. It was hard not to laugh at him, sometimes. A nice contrast, I thought, to the usual psychopath he chose to manifest as.
But he was right about one thing. His scythe was glowing brighter than usual. Glancing down at Zetos and Eirexis strapped to my thigh, I noticed a faint shimmer dancing across the blade, as if it had been touched by moonlight.
"I think Soul isn't the only one with a lead," I said, drawing attention to Zetos. "It's reacting."
"Good. Then we're headed in the right direction," Raphael replied.
We resumed our walk through the thick woods, mindful of the many creatures living here. Most of them were furry predators with long claws and massive fangs, but with the Reapers visible, none dared to get close. I felt them watching us, moving slowly through the underbrush along with us. They were harmless compared to the enemies who were looking forward to tearing through us.
The velvety leaves rustled as the wind brushed through them, its wings riddled with whispers. Kabbah was the first to notice. "The locals know we're here," he said.
"Great. Not only are we still tracking Death with hours left on the clock, the Hermessi have also decided to join us," Eva said.
Phantom walked by Soul and Widow's side. She glanced at us over her shoulder.
"Death is here. I can already feel her," the childlike Reaper said.
"I second that," Widow added.
Now it was only a matter of getting to Death first, before Brendel or her loyalists had any shot at stopping us. With the Spirit Bender by her side, there was no telling what she was capable of, or how devastating the methods she would employ to make sure the ritual was completed would be.
Amelia
A couple of hours passed in dead silence, with no other sign from Kelara. Seeley had tried to reach out to her, but he'd yet to get an answer. We knew she'd be in touch as soon as she could, but we couldn't help our concern, after the dead Reapers we'd found on Mortis.
We left the woods behind as evening settled over this strange realm. There were two moons in the sky, two pearls that cast their white light over the purplish grass and the tall mountain ahead.
It was a massive peak, with stony ridges and rose-colored forests, white streams that burst from the rocks, and a single, solitary beaten path, which others had clearly taken before us, many times over the years. Wildflowers blossomed on both sides, with tall blue stems and yellow petals. I felt as though I'd been treading a dreamworld, where my subconscious had spilled watercolors in all the wrong places.
There was beauty in this strangeness, but I could also sense the danger looming over our heads. Raphael took my hand in his, squeezing gently as we smiled at one another. No matter what, with no words needed, we both knew we were together in this, all the way to the end.
"She's up there," Soul said, raising his scythe. Its glow intensified, confirming his assessment.
Phantom and Widow agreed, as well. Seeley, however, didn't seem convinced, and it worried me. In certain respects, I trusted him more than any other Reaper we'd come across.
"I’m not feeling her so far," he murmured. "It's not right. I'd have sensed her if she were here."
"Then explain this," Soul replied, nodding at his incandescent blade.
"Let's just go up there and find out," Lumi said, more impatient than all of us put together.
We'd started this mission with good intentions, but the pressure and the urgency of it all was already clamping down on us, making it difficult to concentrate. I could almost hear the clock ticking in the back of my head, getting louder with every hour that passed. This sort of anxiety was bound to cause friction among us, and not because we were prone to it, but rather because we simply couldn't help it.
Even so, none of us dared contemplate the prospect of failure. Despite the occasional snarking and eye-rolling, we pushed through. In this instance, we worked our way up the mountain, carefully following Soul's scythe. I, for one, found an ounce of comfort in knowing that, while the local Hermessi had caught wind of our presence, they couldn't find us straightaway, thanks to our Devil's Weed.
"It's at the top," Soul declared, and vanished into thin air.
"Son of a… Now he zaps out of here!" Riza gasped.
We linked hands, and she teleported us to the mountain's peak. We appeared next to Soul on what looked like a carved platform. It had been sculpted into the mountain peak, hidden between thick, white clouds. The cold air made my lungs tickle, but I loved it. This was freshness lik
e nothing I'd experienced before. The low temperature was a welcome change, as well, compared to the first half of our trip in this world. The ground level was much warmer and significantly more humid. Up here, however, it was cooler, and it gave me a strong sense of clarity.
Soul's scythe hummed with delight, as if Death was literally within our reach, but she was still nowhere to be found. The platform was empty.
"Okay, smartass, riddle me this, then," I said, my tone clipped, motioning around us. "Where is she?"
What I didn't like was that Soul, Phantom, and Widow were as lost and as confused as the rest of our crew. It didn't bode well. To be honest, I would've been more at peace with Soul withholding some other valuable piece of information just for the fun of it, like he'd done until now.
An ignorant Soul Crusher put us all on the same page. A blank sheet of paper, with Death still missing and absolutely no direction to go in.
"I… I don't know," Soul mumbled, frowning at his scythe. "This is weird. I don't get how the tracking spell is working, if she isn't here."
"For what it's worth, I still don't sense her," Seeley said, walking around the platform. His gaze wandered all over, as if he was searching for something—what, exactly? He didn't know, but I had a feeling he would, once he found it.
"How can this be?" Phantom asked, then gave her brother a nudge. "Are you sure you did it right?"
"Did what right?" Soul replied, scowling at her.
"The tracking spell."
"Don't be a dweeb. Of course I did it right! Don't insult me," Soul retorted, already insulted. "The spell is fine! Look at it! It's still working! It's resonating with Death, but I just don't know how. She isn't here."
Lumi and Nethissis did a tour of the platform, too, their hands lighting up as they used the Word's magic to find whatever it was that had brought us here. "If it wasn't Death, it was something else that drew your spell here," Lumi said to Soul. "What could it have been?"
The First Tenners thought about it for a moment. Phantom was the first to reply. "Whatever it was, it has Death's energy signature. Perhaps an object of hers?"
The tension was killing me. Poor Taeral was livid, unable to speak anymore. The strain was torturing us all, and there wasn't much we could do to stop it. Our emotions were free, and we were all falling through a dark tunnel with no light of salvation in sight.
Surrendering, I dropped to my knees and exhaled sharply, shuddering in the process. Raphael joined me, kneeling in front of me as he cupped my face and smiled. "It's not over yet," he said.
"I know. I just… I'm so tired," I whispered.
"We all are," Riza chimed in. Only then did I feel the hot tears streaming down my cheeks. I was crying. I was shaking and crying.
Herakles came over, as did Eva and Varga. Amazingly, they were all more concerned about my state of mind than the absolute dead-end we'd stumbled into. Maybe my broken soul could be fixed, unlike this situation with Death.
Seeley stopped in the middle of the platform and bent down, picking something off the ground. He inspected it carefully and brought it over to us. I could see it clearly as he held out his hand.
"What in the world is that?" I asked, hearing my voice tremble.
"It's a pebble," Seeley replied. "Well, not just any pebble. It's a message."
His expression inspired hope and curiosity, but I dared not allow myself to feel anything until he told us more about it.
Phantom, Widow, and Soul came closer, each of them gawking at the pebble, on which I could make out several etchings. Something was written on it, but I didn't recognize the symbols. Seeley, on the other hand, afforded himself the luxury of a confident smile.
"Death left this for us to find," he continued. "I can feel traces of her on it. What I couldn't sense earlier, I do now."
"She left us breadcrumbs?" I managed, remembering an old tale from Earth about a little boy and a little girl who'd gotten lost once, and they'd used breadcrumbs in the hope that their father might find them before they starved.
"It's her old language. The very first she invented," Phantom said, and looked up at Seeley. "Do you know of it?"
He nodded. "She taught me a few words. It's the one language Reapers don't have access to unless she allows it," he replied. "But I can't tell what she's saying. Can you?"
"I'm a little rusty, too, but I can tell you one thing. The words are jumbled." Phantom sighed. "They're not meant to make sense in that order. We need to figure out the message on our own."
Widow scoffed. "Why would she do that? And how did it mess with Soul's spell?"
"I don't think it did. Not on purpose, at least," Soul said. "It's her energy signature. Like Phantom suggested, my spell reacted to an object of hers."
"Why didn't it take us to her, directly?" I asked.
The Soul Crusher seemed uncomfortable. I figured he didn't have an encouraging explanation. "Because she's probably untraceable. Either by her own devices or by the Spirit Bender's doing. So the spell brought us to the next best thing… something she left behind for us to come across."
Lumi cursed under her breath, looking up at the sky and closing her eyes for a moment, as if praying. Maybe she was, in fact, praying. To the Word… to all the forces of the universe.
"Then why did she leave a puzzle and not a clear message?" the swamp witch asked. There was tension in her voice, and I felt it all the way down in the pit of my stomach.
"I'm afraid we're going to have to ask her when we see her," Phantom replied.
Thunder boomed as lightning sliced through clouds I hadn’t even noticed gathering. A storm was swallowing up the moons, and the wind swelled, making my cheeks freeze. Instinctively, I got up, and Raphael joined me as we turned to the east. Something was coming.
Kabbah was already standing on the eastern edge. His fists burst into emerald flames as lights emerged from the clouds, flickering anxiously in different elemental colors. The Hermessi were coming. Normally, I would've said this was to be expected. But leading the pack was Brendel. I recognized her orange fire anywhere, these days.
"How did she know to come here, to this mountain?" Eva breathed, horror widening her yellow eyes.
"The pebble," Seeley replied, realization dawning on him first. "This was a trap."
"What?!" Taeral shot back.
It made sense. As the lights grew bigger in the clouded sky, and as lightning webbed across with bright, nerve-wracking flashes, I understood. "The Spirit Bender took Death. They were here, at some point, long enough for Death to leave us a message," I said. "Whether it was suggested by the Spirit Bender in the first place, or whether he let her do it… it doesn't matter. Leaving the pebble here was deliberate. The energy signature… Spirit knows his brothers better than anyone else."
"He knew we'd be coming," Soul concluded, his lips twisted with disgust and anger. "You're right, Seeley. We walked right into a trap."
As the Hermessi descended upon us, led by Brendel, we all became aware of an impending reality. There was no more running from the Hermessi leader, not this time. This was our turning point, the moment in which we'd fight to the very end. We would either win, or we would lose.
Whatever the outcome, this was unavoidable. Brendel had had enough of us, and, with the Spirit Bender's help, she was determined to do everything in her power and beyond to put an end to our mission.
As scary as that was, it gave me more hope than anything else. It meant that we were still a threat to her. It meant that we still had a shot at stopping the ritual.
Eva
"Gather closer," Taeral advised us. "I doubt she's letting us leave this time."
Riza was the first to notice that she could no longer teleport. "That bitch! She cut us off again," the jinni snarled.
"It was bound to happen," Taeral replied. "We were meant to waste our time looking for Death until we reached this spot. The Spirit Bender lured us here so he could serve us up to Brendel."
The truth of his words echoed deeply inside m
e, making my bones ache. We'd been played by the very creep we were trying to find. He'd already found us, and he'd sent Brendel our way, just to make sure we didn't bother the ritual.
We moved into a tight circle, drawing our pulverizer weapons first. There wasn't much we could do with them, but the pellets were still powerful enough to at least annoy them. Our strength in this fight belonged to Lumi, Nethissis, and Taeral and Riza's magic, along with Eira and Kabbah's Hermessi mojo. My Druid spells were weak, but I could still try something. The aces up our sleeves were, of course, the Reapers who'd sided with us, and I had a feeling Taeral might play a decisive role, as well.
Remembering Thieron, an idea shot through my head, faster than the lightning above. With the Hermessi growing bigger and brighter as they approached the mountain, I figured we'd have to take drastic measures in order to survive and win this, and there was one thing we hadn't tried yet.
"Tae, do you think Thieron will be of any serious help here? I mean, do you think you can get something more out of it than the last time you used it against Brendel?" I asked, my gaze fixed on the incoming Hermessi.
"I can definitely try," he breathed. “What other choice do I have? I’m not a Reaper, though, and I’m certainly not Death… I’m not sure what I can do with it now that it’s complete.”
"Don't be daft, boy!" Soul replied dryly. "It's already weird that you were able to use just two-thirds of Thieron so effectively against Brendel. Dial it up to eleven, and let's find out what you can do!"
"There's no clearer sign that you're a good fit for Thieron," Phantom added, drawing my attention. She was smiling at Taeral in a way that made me swell with pride.
He nodded slowly, as the air thickened and heated around us. The night was illuminated by dozens of Hermessi, with Brendel at the lead. They were close enough to make my skin tighten and my nerves snap, the blaze of their fire drawing sweat from my temples.
A Shade of Vampire 77: A Fate of Time Page 10
