A Shade of Vampire 80: A Veil of Dark

by Forrest, Bella

  “I… What?” I managed, my voice barely a whisper.

  “I suppose now is a good time to make another confession. I’m not as cut off from the world anymore, Taeral. Not since the first five seals were broken,” Death said. “I’m able to listen in, though not as far as Visio yet, I’m afraid. I know and feel what my Reapers know and feel, however.”

  “Wha… What?” My words refused to come out in any coherent form. I felt so bloody stupid. I worried for Sidyan, as well. I’d promised him absolute discretion. What a fool I had been, to think that Death wouldn’t find out, one way or another.

  “I know there is death magic stopping me from sensing my Reapers on Visio. I get the occasional sliver of fear and rage, but they vanish as quickly as they emerge. Given my current condition, I’m unable to override death magic, especially as far away as Visio, but I’m certain that Seeley, Rudolph and the other Reapers are in some kind of trouble.”

  “That can’t be good,” I mumbled.

  “It’s not. It’s tragic, and there is nothing I can do about it for now. I also feel that Sidyan is terrified I’ll find out about his little ghoul friend. I’ll have to square this with him eventually, but in the meantime both he and Maya are useful because they’re outside the death magic blocking range that’s keeping Seeley and Rudolph away from my senses. Not to mention your swamp witch friend, Lumi. She’s got the most powerful motivation against the Darklings,” Death said.

  “No one knows they’re there. Hell, up until five minutes ago, I thought Eira and I were the only ones,” I replied, running a hand through my hair. It was a miracle it wasn’t coming out in clumps, given the stress I’d just been subjected to.

  “They should keep it that way,” Death said. “They have an advantage now, which allows them to go among the Darklings and study their secret society. It’s important that they find their true leader. The Scholars sound more like lieutenants. We need to know who rules over them.”

  “Right, you know about Scholars from our GASP transmissions. Because you’ve been listening in on those, too.”

  “Consider it my third confession today,” Death replied, annoyingly amused. Not that there was anything I could do about it. She was merely stating a fact.

  “Wouldn’t the Darklings have some kind of warding against Reapers, given their track record?” I asked, increasingly worried for Sidyan’s safety.

  “We’ll tell them to keep a safe distance. To be mindful of potential traps once they do come across the Darklings.”

  “We’ll tell them?” I croaked. I was missing something here.

  Death flashed a cool grin. “Right, well… I can only feel Sidyan’s emotions. He’s too far out of my reach, with five hundred seals still holding me down. But you can send a message to Lumi, can you not?”

  I nodded slowly.

  “Do it on my behalf. It’s time for Sidyan to be made aware that he cannot hide things from me. Not anymore. After everything that Spirit has done to me, to our society… to Visio, alone… we need full transparency among ourselves. Otherwise, he’ll win, even though he’s gone.”

  “Right. That makes sense,” I mumbled, cold sweat seeping through my skin. I was getting hot and cold at the same time, feverish and frozen, terrified and eager. As twisted as this entire situation was, it still felt like progress.

  Like two steps forward, then three steps back, then tumbling forward and scraping my knees in the process, but still a couple of yards farther than before. Progress.

  “Go on,” Death said, eyeing me with childlike amusement. “Make the call.”

  Lumi

  We were fifty yards behind Tristan and Valaine’s caravan when Taeral’s voice came through Telluris, echoing in my head.

  “Telluris, Lumi… You there?”

  “I most certainly am,” I mumbled, looking ahead. Daylight revealed the emerald forests lining the Green Road, making its name all the more logical. Hills rose in the distance on both sides, covered in orchards. We could see the pink-and-white blossoms from here, trembling under the ocean breeze.

  We were close to Astoria now. Anticipation was building up inside me, as the caravan had already collected a total of fifty Darklings. They’d killed three times as many, interrupting their raids on Rimian and Nalorean villages. We’d even heard rumors from the head of the line that the Lord Supreme had signed a law banning the blood slave trade, a measure designed to hamper the Darklings’ financial dealings. It was quite a blow, in my opinion, though I doubted it would be enough.

  Even so, it was better than nothing.

  “What is it?” I asked, when Taeral didn’t say anything. Sidyan walked by my side, watching me curiously as I mouthed Taeral’s name, and he nodded once. Maya was somewhere underground, following the tunnel trails.

  “Well, I’ve got bad news and worse news. Maybe some news you might consider to be good. Which do you want to hear first?” Taeral replied.

  I stopped in the middle of the road, my stomach already sinking. My instincts were flaring, and I knew there was some sort of trouble brewing for Sidyan, Maya, and me. Taking a deep breath, I watched as Sidyan stopped and came back to me, his expression bright with questions.

  “Tell me, Tae. What’s going on?” I said.

  “Okay. Well…”

  “Use your words, Tae,” I replied with slight sarcasm, sensing he was nervous. The more he hesitated, the more worried I got.

  “Death knows about Sidyan and Maya,” he finally said. Crap.

  “That can’t be good.” I sighed, staring at the Reaper.

  “This is the bad news. I don’t know what that means for Sidyan and Maya, but you all need to be aware. Death knows.”

  “Got it. And the worse news?”

  “Death says the Scholars are more like lieutenants. There should be a leader of the Darklings. A big kahuna who calls the shots and passes the orders down the authority chain. If you find him or her, it’ll bring us closer to eradicating them. The problem is that only Death can handle that last part, since she’s convinced that the Spirit Bender taught the Darklings everything they know. Sending more Reapers down there now would just put them in danger.”

  “Dammit. So, what? She’s not sending anyone else to Visio?” I asked. Sidyan continued watching me, waiting for me to tell him what was going on. Where would I even begin?

  “No. She says it’s pointless. If the Spirit Bender was involved, then the problem is much bigger than we anticipated. Think about it. They’re using death magic, they’re using ghouls… they’re probably kidnapping Reapers and doing who knows what to them. I admit, I agree with her on this. But if we find the Darklings’ true leader, Death will have more to go on. She’s currently five hundred seals away from freedom, with efforts on multiple fronts to speed the process along.”

  Exhaling sharply, I rubbed my face with my bare hands, groaning with frustration. “This is a lot to take in, Tae.”

  “I know. And I’m sorry. I promise, I didn’t tell her anything about Sidyan and Maya. She just… knew. Turns out she’s not as isolated from the rest of the world anymore. The remaining seals are still holding her back, but she’s able to partially sense her Reapers. She’s able to listen in on our GASP communications, physical or Telluris. She’s watching us closely.”

  “Is she watching Visio, too?” I asked.

  “Nope. Too far away.”

  “How friggin’ convenient!” I snapped.

  “She’s on a limited radius. For now. The more seals that are broken, the farther she’ll be able to reach,” Taeral explained.

  “Okay… Okay,” I murmured, nodding and turning around several times in a bid to look away from Sidyan. His persistent staring was making me nervous. “You said you had some good news, too?”

  “Yeah. So, about Sidyan and Maya…”

  “Oh, geez.”

  “I know. Listen. Death hasn’t decided what she’s going to do with them yet, but she wants the three of you to handle this investigation going forward. She wants you t
o stay hidden from sight, from both the living and the Darklings and their ghouls, and find the true leader. Keep a safe distance from the Darklings, though. They likely have traps in place for Reapers.”

  I needed a moment to process all that. Sidyan grew impatient, constantly moving around so he could face me and mouth “What is he saying?” at me. I understood his anxiousness, but he wasn’t making it any easier for me.

  “Do you think she’ll consider mercy if we do that?” I asked.

  Taeral paused.

  “That’s not a good sign,” I continued. “But fine. We’ll do it. Tell her she can count on us. But whatever information she has about the Spirit Bender, she needs to pass it on. We can no longer be in the dark here, Tae.”

  “I know. She knows it, too,” he replied.

  Once the Telluris link was closed, I resumed a rapid walking pace in order to catch up with the caravan. Sidyan stayed close. “What is going on, Lumi?”

  “A lot is going on, but you’re not going to like it,” I said, unable to look him in the eye anymore.

  “Talk. Now.”

  His voice was so sharp and commanding, I couldn’t ignore it. I told him everything Taeral had said—about him and Maya, about the Darkling leader and our newly defined investigative task. Sidyan stayed quiet as we walked, taking in every word with surprising calm. His expression shifted gradually, from startled to pensive, as he weighed all the facts.

  Once I was done, he didn’t say a word. When Maya came back from the tunnel, he patted the top of her head with brotherly affection. “Go back down,” he said. “Everything’s good here.”

  Maya didn’t doubt him for a second, grinning as she vanished again. My stomach churned at the thought that she might come to an abrupt end soon, since Death knew about her. I’d grown rather fond of the childlike creature, despite her ferociousness. I found comfort in knowing we could at least use her skills while Death was still trapped under those seals.

  “We have time to make a case for ourselves,” Sidyan eventually said, echoing my own thoughts, strangely enough. “Maya and I… We can get Death all the intel she wants about the Darklings, and maybe she’ll spare us both.”

  “She let Herbert and his pack go,” I replied, trying to sound encouraging. My voice was weak, though. I knew that even Herbert might be at risk once Death was free. Her whims were cosmic and impossible to predict or avoid. All we could do was hope she’d keep her word, and that she’d leave Sidyan and Maya alone. But that was only wishful thinking at this point.

  “I can’t tell Maya about this, though,” Sidyan said, his voice low. “If she hears about Death, she will run off and never come back. I will lose her, and she will lose herself, too. She’s too frightened of Death to understand the consequences of making the wrong choice in this.”

  “I understand,” I murmured, giving him a sympathetic half-smile. “I’ll keep my mouth shut. Promise.”

  “Anyway, I’m definitely screwed.” Sidyan chuckled bitterly. “Even if she takes some kind of mercy on Maya, I’m the responsible adult here. I’ve been feeding the ghoul souls, which is against every Reaper law out there. Surely, she knows about that, too.”

  “Death isn’t free yet,” I said. “We can change her mind.”

  The thought of something happening to Sidyan or Maya bothered me more than I’d thought it would. It didn’t seem fair, since both were trying to do the best they could with what they’d been given. But how important were good intentions to an entity that helped shape and move the very universe in which we existed? Even the Word wouldn’t have been able to see past Sidyan’s transgression, despite the fact that the Reaper had chosen irredeemable murderers to feed Maya.

  It’s not his place to judge, the Word would say. The very Word I could barely feel here, on Visio, and I wasn’t sure why that was. My magic was intact, of course, but my connection to the Word felt weak. Almost nonexistent. That wasn’t even at the top of my list of concerns anymore, though.

  We had one hell of a gargantuan fish to fry here.

  “One day at a time,” I told Sidyan. “Let’s find the Darklings first and work our way up from there.”

  “You have a knack for making it all sound much easier than it actually is,” Sidyan replied dryly. “It’s actually rather annoying.”

  “I don’t care about how annoyed you are,” I shot back, nodding ahead. “We’re about to reach Astoria.”

  The entire caravan had stopped, as they’d reached the top of a hill. I hadn’t even noticed the altitude change, my mind burrowed in this whole Death-and-Darklings bundle of awful. Beyond the hilltop, we could see the ruins of Astoria rising in the distance, a good fifty miles away.

  It seemed abandoned, but what were the odds that everything was what it seemed, especially in a place like Visio?

  “I smell trouble,” Sidyan muttered. “How about you?”

  “We’ve been soaking in trouble since we first came to this place,” I said.

  “Your optimism is refreshing.”

  “Your sarcasm, on the other hand, is not.”

  Despite our stings and jabs, Sidyan and I had only one another to rely on. Maya, too, though she depended on us more than we depended on her. So it was the three of us against a horde of death-magic-using Darklings with murderous agendas and ghouls at their behest.

  Trouble, indeed.

  Nethissis

  Waiting for the right moment seemed to take forever.

  I stayed within yards of Rudolph as the black guard guided him around the northern edge of Astoria. The closer we got to the ghouls’ pen, the more anxious I became. Restless, even, shifting around and checking every single black guard and Darkling in sight. To my surprise, I realized the ghouls had stopped snarling at me. As if they’d gotten used to my presence. As if I was no longer that delicious morsel they’d been pining for. I didn’t even notice when this change had happened. I merely understood that it had.

  Perhaps Rudolph had had something to do with it. After all, the ghouls were able to communicate in their whispery language. Maybe he’d made them understand that I was not lunch, but rather a friend, trying to do the right thing.

  The black guard was bored, his gaze wandering all over Astoria as he walked Rudolph. He’d done this before; I could tell. This wasn’t the first ghoul he’d taken on walks. But I hoped it would be the last.

  Holding my breath, I locked gazes with Rudolph, who gave me a faint nod. Approaching the ghouls’ pen, he purred softly to his fellow creatures. As the black guard moved to affix his rune chain back to its stone base, the other ghouls jumped and snarled, startling him. The scare was so sudden and proficiently calculated that the black guard’s instincts were slowed, clouding his judgment.

  He fell on his hind and scrambled backward, his body briefly tangled with Rudolph’s. He kicked Rudolph away and managed to link his chain to the stone base, while Rudolph curled up on the ground, huffing and puffing as he covered his skinny abdomen. The other ghouls watched the guard with vicious eyes, but they were quiet now. Like predators. Waiting.

  “That’ll teach you to be stupid,” the black guard muttered, and walked away.

  I rushed over to Rudolph, gently stroking the side of his face. “Are you okay?” I asked, and Rudolph looked at me with big, warm black eyes. A glimmer caught my attention. Looking down, I saw a scythe’s blade on the ground, right next to him. His fingers were curled around its ivory handle.

  “Hot diggity!” I exclaimed, almost laughing. “You did it!”

  I checked my surroundings again. The ghouls were motionless, resting on their legs like obedient and curious dogs. There were black guards about thirty yards away, at different points around the pen. What came next had to be done fast—before any of them noticed. They, too, had scythes, and they could clearly use them to kill ghouls, much like Veliko. I wanted to save these creatures, not get them murdered.

  “Okay… Okay, so… we’ve made it this far,” I murmured, smiling at Rudolph. “You’ve been amazing. What
do we do next?”

  Rudolph handed me the scythe, forcing himself to speak the tongue of the living—an effort that made his face wrinkle with pain. “Cut… chain…”

  “Roger that,” I replied, continuously impressed by his ability to press forward, despite his tragic condition.

  I took the scythe in my hands, without immediately noticing the commotion I’d caused. Focused on the rune chain links, I brought the scythe’s blade down in an effort to crush them. Energy surged through my arm like an icy draft. This was a Reaper’s power. It was intense. It was nothing like what I’d felt when we’d first touched Yamani’s scythe during our Hermessi quest. I wondered if it had something to do with me being dead. Maybe my spirit reacted differently than my body.

  “What the hell?!” one of the black guards shouted.

  “Who is that?” another asked.

  Looking to my right, I saw them staring. They could see me. They could friggin’ see me, and it had to be the scythe. Veliko had failed to reveal me, and yet simply holding a Reaper scythe had made me visible to the enemy. Son of a...

  Rudolph yelped nervously, yanking at the rune chain, which I had yet to break. I kept hitting it with the blade, a shower of sparks flying outward in different colors. Red. White. Blue. Green. Violet. The entire spectrum exploded as I brought the scythe down, over and over, my nerves so tight they were bound to snap.

  “I really wish I could understand exactly how this whole Reaper scythe thing works,” I muttered, gritting my teeth. I split my attention between breaking Rudolph’s chain and keeping an eye on the black guards, who took out their own scythes and came charging at me. “Oh crap, oh crap!”

  Time was running out faster than I could mentally process what I was doing.

  Rudolph was practically squealing, restless and scared. His big eyes darted between me and the incoming guards. The other ghouls, however, were eerily calm, mere inches behind him. Something was off. But I kept hitting. The guards kept coming, and I kept hitting the damn rune chain, until I finally saw the first crack.