A Shade of Vampire 73: A Search for Death

by Forrest, Bella

  The wheels squealed in my head. “Your boss. Death.”

  “Yes.”

  “Is she here?” I asked.

  “No.”

  I persisted. “How’d she make this so-called mess, then?”

  “You’re not safe here, you know,” he answered. I had a feeling he was trying to change the subject.

  “Where are we, exactly?”

  A twig snapped somewhere to my right. Instinctively, I gave the source of that noise a brief glance. It was enough to lose sight of the Reaper for a split second, and it helped him, for he vanished again. “Dammit!” I snarled.

  A strange-looking deer had distracted me. It froze, its big black eyes fixed on me, its large ears flicking nervously. It didn’t seem to care much for my dismay. It chewed a bunch of leaves, one hoof elevated and ready to take another step.

  Raphael made his way down the stream, joined by Lumi, Eira, and Amelia. They rushed to reach me. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The Reaper was gone, and I hadn’t made any strides in figuring out where we were. The frustration was building up inside me, and I worried it would only get worse while we waited for Phoenix to give us some good news.

  Meanwhile, back in our worlds, more fae were falling under the Hermessi’s influence. Five million didn’t seem that far away anymore, and that terrified me the most.

  “What happened?” Lumi asked me. “Did you find him?”

  I nodded. “But I lost him again.”

  “Did he say anything?” she pressed.

  I told her about my brief encounter and the scythe’s surprising ability to turn me invisible to a Reaper, complete with my theory on planes of existence and how an agent of Death could navigate them as such. As expected, it made them wonder the same thing—what else could the scythe do in the hands of a non-Reaper, and what was this mess that he’d referred to? Had souls been dumped here arbitrarily, plucked from their planets and left to the Reapers to clean up and shuffle into the world of the dead? If so, why? What was the point? Death’s behavior was increasingly puzzling, and it didn’t promise anything even remotely optimistic for our intention of speaking to her and asking for her help.

  “It makes me wonder,” Raphael said after a long pause, “what else we’ll find on this planet. More Reapers? More lost souls?”

  “Probably,” Amelia replied.

  “Even so, we should keep moving,” Raphael suggested. “The Hermessi are still active here, and they might sense us, eventually. Besides, we might run into chattier Reapers along the way.”

  “Perhaps chatty enough to tell us where we are, right?” Eira sighed.

  I looked at her, marveling at the sense of relief she gave me. She’d loosened up more since our Hellym adventure. Maybe she’d found a new side to herself during those minutes in which she’d been deprived of her Water Hermessi powers. After all, she’d been as vulnerable as the rest of us. But I didn’t mind the change. I welcomed it.

  “Raphael makes sense,” I said. “We should keep moving. At least until we find a Reaper willing to tell us where we are.”

  Lumi grinned. “Bet you’re eager to put that scythe to the test again,” she replied.

  Deep down, I had to admit—yes, I certainly wanted to see what else it could do, and if I could at least get it to make me vanish again, like a Reaper. It didn’t work straightaway, that much was obvious. I’d managed to will it into helping me earlier, but it didn’t function the same outside those specific conditions.

  Even now, as I held it, I wanted it to turn me invisible, but it wouldn’t. Maybe I needed to confront another Reaper in order for it to react. No problem there. I looked forward to finding one.

  Phoenix

  Even with all of Amelia’s parameters, I still couldn’t find their location. I’d put in all the stars and their celestial positions from where she’d stood at the time. I’d removed the consideration of short distance, assuming that the pink waters weren’t limited to local “wormholes,” and that they could lead to worlds outside Eritopia altogether—that much had been obvious from the moment Amelia had described the night sky, to begin with.

  To say that I was frustrated would’ve been a severe understatement. My fiancée was worried about her sisters, whose hearts had broken over Mount Agrith, and we now had at least one Hermessi on Calliope, Firr, gearing up against us. The influenced fae number continued to grow, and so did the natural elements’ power. It was only a matter of time before they reached the magic five million that would help them complete the ritual and destroy us all.

  Meanwhile, Taeral and his crew were stuck in the middle of somewhere, with no way of getting back to us. They could try going back through the pink waters, but there was no guarantee that they would come out anywhere in Eritopia or any of the planets we all knew about. That had been the downside of these primordial ponds to begin with—few things were certain, and a traveler’s ability to control the destination point had not been one of those things. Without knowing where they were, we couldn’t even assume they’d had any say in where the pink waters had taken them.

  On my end, there was nothing, and Varga and his team were growing increasingly impatient as the hours went by. Time was running out, and we still needed to find Death. So, when Taeral and Varga had agreed to let us focus on finding the Nekronos system first, I decided to take all the data that Viola and Draven had gathered from the Druid archives and put it into my computers, hoping I’d speed up the process of finding Mortis. Unfortunately, I’d designed this system myself, and no one else could handle its intricacies. Everyone else who might’ve possibly assisted me on this had been dispatched to help track down the cults. I’d have to get back to Taeral and his crew as soon as I figured out where Death was holed up.

  Even from this endeavor, there was one thing that had become painfully clear: Death would not be an easy entity to talk to. She wouldn’t give any handouts, and she wouldn’t be immediately willing to help us. She would’ve done it already, if she could. Or if she wanted. Again, another mystery that nagged me. Why hadn’t she intervened by now, like she’d done before? She certainly wasn’t making it easy for anyone looking to find her. To me, that suggested the risk of her potential unwillingness to do anything about the Hermessi. It could mean that Varga and his team might come back with nothing from a trip to Mortis, once we found it.

  My search process continued, as I kept my eyes glued to the screens and occasionally modified the search parameters, while Viola offered me new bits of information from the Druid scrolls. Some were detailed enough to give us astronomical maps drawn from different locations across the In-Between, two of which were noted to be close to the Nekronos system. So far, we’d narrowed it down to four potential galaxies where that cluster would be, so I’d begun narrowing the search further and focusing on those.

  “I feel homeless,” Safira said quietly, resting her head on the table in the middle of my office.

  “That’s because we are homeless,” Rubia replied dryly.

  It had been like this for the past couple of hours. The destruction of Mount Agrith had changed the Daughters of Eritopia, and I wasn’t sure if the shift was positive or negative. They sounded even more like sullen teenagers now than they did before. Viola was the only one who’d kept it together—then again, she hadn’t been as tied to Mount Agrith as her sisters. She was more GASP than Daughter.

  Draven and Serena had been kind enough to accommodate the Daughters by giving them their own living quarters in Luceria, and there were plenty of incubi and succubi eager to help them settle in, to serve and support them as they desired. Among the common people of Calliope, they still had their godlike ranks, even after it had become known that they were the products of pink water, made by Wei, the Earth Hermessi.

  Even so, the Daughters kept coming back to my office every five or six hours, so they’d be close to Viola. There was something about her that seemed to appease them, to make them feel a little better. I didn’t mind, since they didn’t say much while th
ey lounged here, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for them. They seemed to lack purpose. It was as if their whole lives had been crushed along with Mount Agrith.

  “They’ll get better eventually,” Viola whispered to me, wearing a tentative smile. I felt her anguish, too. Her sisters’ pain was hers, as well, and it rippled through me in disturbing waves of hot and cold. However, she kept her composure. Her emotions didn’t get in the way of our mission, which, as of Varga’s last conversation with Taeral, had been to focus solely on finding Mortis.

  “I know,” I replied softly, clicking away at the keyboard while she added two more serium batteries to the computer’s central unit. She’d learned a lot about the system since Dmitri, Jovi, and I had put it together with Arwen and Corrine’s help, over a year ago.

  After Strava, we’d delved deeper into the possible combinations of magic and technology, made feasible by the serium imports approved by Amane and Amal. The twin Faulties had made their own strides in the field, and we’d often shared insights and discoveries as we progressed. So far, this computer system was my favorite. It was the equivalent of a magical artificial intelligence, capable of incredibly complex equations. It didn’t fear the idea of searching an entire universe for one measly planet.

  “I feel like we should find something to do,” Chana said from the other side of the table. Amassa was braiding Nibel’s hair, and Nova was sifting through other Druid scrolls, occasionally passing something useful over for Viola to study, who, in turn, gave it to me. Efissa and Ruelle were as dismayed as Rubia and Safira, aimlessly staring at the ceiling or out the large, floor-to-ceiling window. From here, they could still see a thread of smoke rising from above the ocean, where Mount Agrith had once been.

  The twin peaks were gone, gobbled up by an active volcano. A sizzling pile of rocks, wood, dirt, and lava had been left in their place. No one dared get close to that island anymore, fearing additional retaliation from Firr. He’d made his point, and we were in no position to fight him. The last thing we wanted was the kind of attention that Taeral and his entire crew had been getting from the Hermessi.

  “We could visit the sanctuaries,” Ruelle suggested. “If they want us there…”

  “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” I snapped, then turned around to face them. “Just because your mountain was destroyed, it doesn’t mean you’re useless or unwanted here! On the contrary, the people need you now more than ever. Why are you letting Mount Agrith define you? I don’t remember you ladies being so—”

  “Vulnerable?” Nova replied with a half-smile. I sighed, nodding slowly. “Mount Agrith is where we came from. I might’ve been forced to hatch early, and Viola might not have been as tied to it as our sisters, but still, I understand their plight. Mount Agrith wasn’t just our point of origin. It was our home. It was our haven, where we went for solace and meditation. Surely, you understand why my sisters are so out of balance.”

  “I understand, but… I don’t know, we’re dealing with so much already,” I said, choosing my words carefully as I caught a whiff of irritation across the room, coming exclusively from the other Daughters. “I think your hearts and your souls would feel better if you were preoccupied with something else. Like caring for the fae. Or helping the witches and all of GASP in stifling the Hermessi cults’ advance across the In-Between. We’re still fighting them. We’re still facing mass extinction, with or without Mount Agrith.”

  “You’re right,” Safira said. “You are absolutely right, Phoenix. And we’ve been selfish, perhaps, to behave like this. Coming here, sulking, and doing nothing but feeling sorry for ourselves.”

  “It wasn’t without reason,” Viola said, trying to comfort them.

  “No, but he’s got a point,” Rubia interjected, then rubbed her face and pulled her reddish pink hair into a loose bun on the top of her head. I’d been around the Daughters for long enough to recognize that move—the let’s-get-to-work move. There was hope for them yet. “We should get out of here. Visit the sanctuaries across Eritopia, then gather in The Shade and discuss the next steps with Derek and Sofia.”

  Chana got up first. “Yes. We should do that. We cannot let Firr dictate how we spend what is left of our lives.”

  “That did not sound as optimistic as you might’ve intended,” I muttered, pinching the bridge of my nose. Chana stared at me, befuddled, and Viola giggled.

  A heavy boom echoed from outside. It was enough to make us all jump. I’d heard that sound before, and it had preceded the fall of Mount Agrith. Naturally, our collective instinct was to rush to the window and look toward Mount Agrith.

  “Please, don’t tell me it’s… Oh, no, it’s not,” Safira said, her palms pressing the glass as we huddled to see what had just happened.

  “It sounded like thunder,” Nova said.

  But the streak of black smoke crossing the clear sky didn’t speak of a storm. I followed its point of origin first—high up to the east. It had pierced the atmosphere. Mount Agrith was still far to the north, crumbled.

  “No, that streak,” I replied, pointing with my finger on the glass, right to the new thread of black smoke. “It came from outside. Maybe a meteor…”

  I followed it all the way into the west part of the window frame. It descended toward the continent. My mind was already going through the geography of the continent as I quickly tried to estimate its point of impact.

  Viola and I seemed to be on the same page, as we both gasped at the same time.

  “Stonewall!” she said, beating me to it by a split second.

  Indeed, something enormous had pierced Calliope’s atmosphere, and it had gone down in flames toward the ocean to the west, where Stonewall, the citadel of Bajangs, stood proudly. For a moment, my chest tightened. My True Sight wasn’t capable of reaching so far across the continent, but from what I could tell, the city’s outline was still visible, close to the dark blue horizon.

  An explosion occurred when the large object landed. I wasn’t sure where it hit the ground, exactly, as we were too far away on Mount Zur, but the impact was audible. Like the loudest thunderclap, followed by reverberations that traveled across the entire land. I was willing to bet the tremors were felt all the way back to Luceria. I heard glasses clinking on the table behind us.

  “It fell there, yes,” Safira replied.

  “We should go there first,” Rubia said.

  But what was it, I wondered? With so much happening already, I wasn’t exactly in the mood for another negative development. We had our hands full. God-level enemies that were looking forward to wiping us all out, and half of my family stuck in crystal casings back in The Shade. We were scrambling against a countdown to the apocalypse, so…

  What the hell was it this time? What else had the universe decided to hurl at us?

  Kailani

  After a series of in-depth searches through the Witches’ Sanctuary in the Supernatural Dimension, Grandpa Ibrahim came back with an old and rusty pencil case. In it, he’d locked Herbert, a ghoul the witches had tamed and that he’d trained specifically to serve him decades ago. We’d come to the decision that Herbert might be able to help us, both with physical tasks pertaining to Reapers—since we needed to learn more about them, now that we knew they existed—and with insights on this realm between the dead and the living, which these agents of Death treaded so carefully and quietly.

  I met with Grandpa Ibrahim and Grandma Corrine in Luceria, leaving Lumi’s apprentices to look after the Calliope, Persea, and Nevertide sanctuaries that housed the fallen fae. My mom and the other witches handled The Shade and all the other planets where the Hermessi cults had struck. For now, I decided to focus on this Herbert issue.

  Hunter was with the other GASP agents on Mount Zur, preparing another operation against the local Hermessi cult chapter. There had been rumors among the Imps living in the south that something unprecedented was planned, and that they were no longer recruiting fae. All the fae on Calliope had been affected and sealed in their individual crystal casin
gs. No, this was much worse. These were cultists of different species, preparing for some kind of offensive, and they had Hermessi power on their side.

  “What do we know about their warpower?” Grandma Corrine asked as we made our way to one of the private rooms on the top floor of Luceria. She carried a bag filled with food for Herbert, which she’d taken from the castle kitchen. He hadn’t eaten in a long time. He was bound to be peckish.

  I knew Draven and Serena were both nearby, ready to come in if we required additional support. Draven’s Druid abilities could come in handy, and, given Serena’s sentry nature, we had a feeling she might be able to help with the ghoul, if, by some unexpected twist, we couldn’t. I trusted that wouldn’t be necessary, though. I’d never met Herbert, but Grandpa Ibrahim had assured me that he was tame and obedient. I was just being extra cautious, given our complicated circumstances.

  “They wouldn’t be as strong as the Hermessi themselves, but they would likely be able to act on their behalf. That means beefed up elemental mojo, enough to make things harder for us,” I said, relaying some of the intel that Hunter had gathered from his field missions across the continent. Because he was a white werewolf and could turn at will, not just at night, Hunter was able to cross great distances and sneak into the more hidden settlements of the outer territories, particularly in the south and the southwest of the continent, where most of the cult rumors had been coming from. Due to the size of the terrain he could cover, my guy had come back with this alarming new information.

  “What are Field and Aida going to do about it?” Grandpa Ibrahim replied. He placed Herbert’s pencil case on the round table in the middle of the room and pulled all the curtains on the window, reducing the amount of sunlight coming in. Noticing my curious expression, he smiled. “He hasn’t been out in over forty years, honey. We forgot about the Eritopian time-lapse, which affected him, too. He’ll be a bit sensitive to light, and I want him to feel comfortable. Ghouls can go on for a long time without nourishment and light, but it’ll still make them grouchy.”