A Shade of Vampire 73: A Search for Death

by Forrest, Bella

  “Varga and his team are back on Calliope now, but they can’t stay there for much longer,” Lumi replied, looking at me. “Even with the Devil’s Weed on them, they’re still a target for the Hermessi, much like us.”

  “I would’ve wanted us to find the Nekronos system together.” I sighed, shaking my head slowly. But, with every hour that passed, I began to consider the possibility that we might not make it back in time to regroup with Varga and get to Mortis, where Death supposedly dwelled.

  “That might not happen, unless Phoenix finds us first. And he needs to find Mortis before he finds us,” Lumi said. “Reaching out to Death is a priority, given the current fae numbers.”

  Eira got up, wearing a half-smile and a glimmer of curiosity in her ocean-colored eyes. “So, do we explore this place, at least, and come back to this cliff when it’s time to leave?”

  “That might be a good idea,” Amelia replied. “There’s nothing left for me to do here. We might as well see what this place is like.”

  “I’ll lose my mind if we don’t get moving,” Raphael grumbled.

  I couldn’t blame him. I couldn’t blame any of them. None of us were made to wait in silent limbo while someone came to rescue us. We were the ones who usually did the rescuing, after all.

  Varga’s voice came through in my head, thanks to our still-active Telluris link. “Telluris, Taeral! Tae, you there?”

  “I am. What’s up? Where are you?” I asked.

  “Oh, we’re on Mount Zur, waiting for Phoenix to give us Mortis’s and your location. But that’s not what I wanted to talk about,” he replied, and I could tell from his voice that something was off.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Um… You’re not going to like it, and I’m sorry you’re out there, somewhere, and not here…”

  “Varga, get on with it,” I said, my nerves quickly stretching to newfound limits.

  “It’s your dad. Sherus. He… He’s under the Hermessi’s influence.”

  The silence that followed as he waited for my response was deafening. The news had hit me like a punch, right in the gut. My knees turned to mush, my legs no longer able to hold me. I slipped down to the nearest rock and exhaled sharply.

  Lumi, Amelia, Raphael, and Eira were all watching me, eyes wide and curious. Varga had only reached out to me via Telluris. They didn’t know yet. I glanced up at them, my heart aching.

  “My father. He’s now among the more than 3.5 million fae under the Hermessi’s influence,” I managed, then turned my attention back to Varga, despite the gasps erupting from my crew. “Varga, do you know how it happened?”

  “Nuriya isn’t sure, but she suspects it was a non-fae cult member. All six of his new guards are currently in detention, pending an investigation,” he said.

  After GASP had begun placing the fae in quarantine, they had agreed to assign GASP agents to protect the leadership of our allies’ planets. My parents had been given a detail of six vampires and werewolves. According to Varga, the Hermessi might’ve gotten to one of them. Deep down, I had known it was only a matter of time before my father became a victim, too, especially since he was such a high-profile target, but it still hurt me deeply. It made my plight all the more desperate, because I had an additional and extremely important reason to succeed in this endeavor of ours. If I didn’t, my father would perish, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, consider failure as an option.

  “How’s Mom?” I asked Varga. “How is she holding up?”

  “Dude, your mother is a freaking warrior queen,” Varga replied. “She’s keeping it together, and she’ll be overseeing the interrogations. Sherus is in the sanctuary on the Fire Star now. He’s in good hands, so don’t worry about him for now.”

  “That’s an impossible thing to ask of me,” I murmured.

  “I know. But I… we need you to keep your head in the game,” Varga said.

  I nodded, looking at my team again. “Rest assured, V, I’m focused on our mission, now more than ever. There’s nothing I can do about my dad, and I know Mom is there to make sure nothing happens to him. It’s on us, now. It’s on us to carry on and stop the Hermessi.”

  “I’m sorry it got to this,” Varga replied. “We’ll keep you updated on Phoenix’s progress. In the meantime, if there’s anything else, we’ve got Telluris. Don’t hesitate to use it.”

  “I won’t, thanks.” I sighed.

  “Taeral…” Eira tried to speak but bit her lower lip instead. I had a feeling she couldn’t find the right words to say, given the circumstances. I found her awkwardness endearing, and I remembered that I was still in charge of her safety and wellbeing.

  “I think we should get moving,” I said, giving everyone a brief nod. “This world has Hermessi in it, so I don’t want us to linger too long in one place. You heard Raphael: he’s about to lose his mind. The last thing we need is a psychotic Perfect.”

  Raphael chuckled softly and gave me a friendly pat on the back. “That’s the spirit.”

  We made our way down the cliff and through the woods, heading north. At ground level, the trees were spectacularly tall, and the moon’s persistent shine began to falter. Many seemed to defy gravity, their slender trunks in seeming opposition to their nearly impossible height. The deeper we went, the green crowns above thickened enough to pull the darkness over us. I snapped my fingers and produced a small flame in the palm of my hand—enough to help us see ahead as we conquered mile after mile of strange wilderness. The top side view had been well lit. Down here, the shadows reigned.

  “There are animals here,” Amelia said, her gaze darting left and right, her pupils dilating and her nostrils flaring. I had to give credit to vampires—their senses were extraordinary, especially in the dark. “Small ones, a few rodent types… some kind of deer with extremely long and straight antlers… and predators. There are some predators in the area.”

  “What kind?” Herakles asked. “Big and slow, or feline types that could easily pounce on us?”

  Amelia shook her head. “Somewhere in between. Some species of bear with black fur… I saw a couple of wolves, or creatures similar to wolves. I’ll call them wolves, for now. But they’re keeping their distance.”

  “Good. I’d hate to end up as lunch,” Lumi muttered, prompting Raphael to chuckle.

  “Are you trying to make Eira feel better?” he asked.

  “Hey! What gives?” Eira croaked, slightly alarmed.

  “Well, technically, out of the five of us, you’re most likely to end up as wolf chow if they attack,” Raphael replied. A second later, water gushed from the side and hit him so hard, he toppled and fell like a big ol’ tree. “I take that back,” he added, grunting as he pulled himself back up and gave Eira a sheepish smile. He looked at me next. “So, then, you’re the weakest link?”

  The flame in my hand burned brighter and more menacing as I narrowed my eyes at him. “Let me guess, you’re trying to figure out which one of us you can sacrifice to a pack of wolves?”

  Amelia smacked him over the shoulder. He laughed. “Fortunately, we’re all high-end specimens here,” Amelia said. “No one’s getting eaten by wolves or whatever else roams through these woods.”

  We walked for a couple of hours, talking and going over everything that had happened. We’d done the same in the previous four hours after our arrival here, but the topics didn’t get old. How would we get out of here? Would we get out of here in time to meet with Varga and join him on the Mortis mission? What was going on with Harper? What more could we tell Phoenix to help him find us faster? What options did we have left to fight the Hermessi before they hit the five million fae mark? Questions without answers, questions that bugged the hell out of me…

  Amelia frowned and came to a sudden halt. Instinctively, we all stopped by her side, and she took several deep breaths.

  “What is it?” Raphael whispered.

  “Shush. Hold on. The air’s getting colder,” she said quietly. “I mean, the temperature is dropping.”
>
  “We are headed north,” I said. She shot me a dark glare.

  “That’s not what I mean. Don’t you feel it?” Amelia asked, and we all shook our heads.

  Granted, it was chillier in these parts than up on the cliff, but I didn’t find the temperature drop to be all that noticeable. Still, it wasn’t enough to satisfy her. She stilled, her gaze fixed on something not far from where we stood.

  I followed her point of focus but couldn’t see anything. “What is it, Amelia?” I asked, my voice low.

  “This is… This is weird,” she said. “Don’t you see him?”

  “See who?” Raphael replied, persistently staring in the same direction.

  Eira and Lumi were equally confused.

  “He’s standing right there. Fifty yards, at three o’clock,” Amelia insisted, pointing a finger in that direction. “Come on, he’s looking right at us.”

  But there wasn’t anyone there. Not even a silhouette or a shadow. I, for one, was downright puzzled. Amelia, on the other hand, was getting genuinely alarmed. She glanced around, then gasped.

  “What?” Raphael blurted, on the edge of his seat, so to speak.

  “Oh, come on, you can’t see them?” Amelia croaked. “There are people here! Not just that guy, but all around us.” She started pointing in different directions. “Four over there. Two there. A few more on that side. I can’t be the only one seeing them! You guys should be able to see them, too!”

  “Amelia, I swear, we can’t,” Lumi said, trying to reassure her, though she was clearly baffled. “What… What do they look like? Can you describe them to us? What are they doing?”

  Amelia chuckled nervously and covered her mouth for a moment. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and popped them open again. The tremor in her lower lip didn’t go away. Judging by her expression alone, she could still see them.

  “They’re not… They’re not doing anything. Just standing there and watching us. Only, they’re not full… Gah, how do I explain this?” she stammered. “They’re… translucent… half-visible… like holographs. And they look different. Some are young, some are elderly. Male, female. Kids. Different species, too,” she added, turning around several times, as if to take it all in. “I see humanoids… maybe Imen and people of Earth. Fae… I see a couple of daemons… Hell, there’s a couple of species I certainly don’t recognize. This is weird. And creepy!”

  Raphael put his arm around her and held her close. I amplified my fire enough to cast a brighter light around us. Lumi helped, and we lit the forest up on a hundred-yard radius. We noticed animals rushing left and right, but certainly none of the people Amelia had just described.

  It hit me, then, what this could be. But it was highly improbable, since there were no actual accounts recorded in GASP of such sightings.

  “Could she be seeing… ghosts?” I asked out loud.

  Lumi was the first to react. “I’ve never heard of people actually seeing them. Regardless of their species. Maybe feeling them, sometimes, in certain conditions,” she said. “Of course, every culture has its folktales about the dead and the afterlife.”

  “Okay, now they’re gone,” Amelia snapped, putting her hands on her hips. She gave me a worried look. “Am I losing my mind?”

  Did I have an answer for that? No, I didn’t. Multiple possibilities thundered in my mind. Visions. Actual ghosts. Hallucinations. Mirages. Projections from some kind of spell. But nothing else happened—a magic offensive seemed rather far-fetched.

  Maybe they were just local creatures. Or, perhaps, Amelia was right. Maybe she was suffering from some kind of breakdown. I found that even harder to believe than the idea that a witch was messing with us, though. Amelia’s psyche was ironclad. Everything that had happened to us so far would’ve been enough to send a human off the deep end, but certainly not a creature like Amelia.

  No, something else was going on here, and it warranted further investigation. Since we were still waiting for a sign from Phoenix, we basically had nothing better to do. I advised our group to keep moving and pay attention. Something told me this wasn’t the last sighting Amelia would come across, and my instinct was rarely wrong.

  Eva

  In a way, my experience in the Volcrun caves had transformed me. I was no longer the Eva who had first gone down there. I found myself in awe of Kabbah, Nevertide’s Earth Hermessi. He was old and powerful—enough to deter the other Hermessi from attacking him. It didn’t stop them from coming after us, sure, but Kabbah sent a clear message across when he obliterated their Shills. Fortunately, his brethren’s desperation to kill us had made him tell us about Death.

  I was inclined to believe that Kabbah wanted to do more, but, since they held his daughter hostage, he didn’t dare. He hid behind that grumpy and uncaring façade, but deep down, I knew he was worried. He’d been against the first ritual. He couldn’t be okay with this one, either.

  But what had really changed me was my own interaction with him. I’d been fearless—or, better said, numb. Kabbah could’ve easily crushed me for my insolence, but I stood by every word I’d said to him, and it seemed to have earned me his respect. I wondered if he would’ve been as forthcoming as he was, had I not poked and prodded him.

  The Lamia princess, daughter of Tamara and future Lady of the Lamias, was pretty much a distant memory for me. I wasn’t that person anymore. I was infinitely stronger. My self-confidence was booming. I was out of my silk cocoon and blossoming into a creature I looked forward to getting to know better. If only my mother could set her pride aside and see me now…

  I hadn’t spoken to her since I’d joined the mission for Cerix. I missed her, even that version of her that made me want to scream and run away—yet she hadn’t even sent word to me. Nothing. It was as if I’d stopped existing all of a sudden. I wondered about her, but I didn’t want to be the one to reach out. That would’ve meant playing into her hands, and my mother was an expert in manipulation. I had firsthand experience with her machinations. She meant well, but her mind belonged to another era, another culture.

  “You seem different,” Varga said, pulling me out of my musings. His eyes were fixed on me, gold flakes dancing around his pupils.

  We were in Phoenix’s telescope room, patiently waiting while he scoured the astral maps, using details he’d gotten from Amelia’s sky readings. Riza and Herakles were settled at the other end of the table, and Fallon was half asleep in a chair next to Phoenix. We were on our own here, while the rest of GASP was assigned to multiple field missions and administrative tasks. Roles had been shifted, priorities had been changed. After Mount Agrith came down, that had struck me as the reasonable thing to do.

  We were stretched thin, anyway. My crew was in limbo, waiting, much like Taeral and the others. I looked forward to being reunited with them, because I felt a bit safer with a swamp witch like Lumi around. I also liked Eira a lot. She was my kind of girl—kind and decent, but ruthless when push came to shove.

  But I did enjoy these few moments I had with Varga. I could feel his eyes on me, even when I wasn’t looking. I didn’t need his abilities to sense his interest in me. My heart skipped a beat whenever I had his attention. “What do you mean?” I asked, giving him a weak smile.

  “I don’t know… Your aura’s brighter since we got back from Nevertide,” Varga replied.

  “Is that a good thing?”

  “I think so. I think our meeting with Kabbah made you stronger, in a sense. Though that doesn’t come as a surprise, given the verbal beating you gave him,” he laughed lightly.

  My cheeks were on fire. “I had to say those things. I had to make him see…”

  “Oh, I completely agree. Honestly, I don’t think he would’ve told us otherwise,” Varga said. “Your contributions to this mission are priceless, Eva. I hope you know that.”

  And now, I was melting, all gooey on the inside. No one had ever made me feel this way before, and I couldn’t help but feel a little ridiculous. He’d basically just told me I’d
done a good job, and I was fawning over him like he was the brightest star in my universe. My mother had taught me to seek my interest above anyone else’s, even in a relationship—much like she’d done with Azazel. After all, she’d only gotten with him so she could have a child. Me. However, I wasn’t like that.

  I wouldn’t have dared use Varga, or anyone else, for that matter, like my mother had used Azazel. That move had backfired on her, anyway. Had it not been for Draven and Serena and their friends, Azazel would’ve found us, eventually. And I sure as hell had never wanted to be an heir to his empire of pain and misery. He would’ve killed Mom.

  I sighed deeply. “Thank you,” I said to Varga. “I try to do my best.”

  “You’re a badass.” Riza giggled.

  “Now you’re exaggerating.” I scoffed, crossing my arms.

  “Anything new, Phoenix?” Herakles asked, leaning back in his chair.

  Phoenix shook his head, eyes glued to the screens, analyzing a gigantic star map and checking his notes every other minute. “Not yet. I feel like I’m close. Amelia described a few constellations, but I’m not there yet.”

  “What about Mortis?” Varga replied.

  “Oh, I’m still waiting on the result for that,” Phoenix replied, pointing at another screen, on which numbers and strings of code flickered, page after page, as he’d linked the telescope to the computer in order to do an in-depth search of the In-Between. Once again, I found myself gawking at these magi-tech combinations like an ignorant little girl. I knew little to nothing about them, but I did understand their capabilities, and I was aware of the extraordinary results they yielded. They were just some of the perks that had drawn me to GASP in the first place.