A Shade of Vampire 73: A Search for Death

by Forrest, Bella

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” Amelia said. “You couldn’t have known. None of us knew. I had no friggin’ idea… The pink waters are insanely receptive, if they were able to pick up my tiniest thought about Hellym. I’m as baffled as you are.”

  “No wonder the pink waters are so hidden and protected,” Raphael replied. “Imagine if everyone knew about them and what they can do.”

  “It also explains why Firr sealed up the Calliope one,” Lumi reminded him. “He knew it would only be a matter of time before we figured it out. Before the others found out, too.”

  “Yeah, but Firr couldn’t anticipate all our moves, unfortunately for him and his ilk,” I said. “Since we are already here. Sheesh.”

  “Let’s get past this initial shock,” Eira interjected, pointing at the waterfall building. “What’s over there?”

  I took a lungful of air, trying not to look at it too much. I worried that, if I paid too much attention, it would actually start talking to me, somewhere in the depths of my consciousness—because whatever that place was, it had some kind of life in it. It was more than a building. It was an entity.

  “I think it’s where she lives,” I whispered.

  “You mean Death? How do you know?” Lumi asked.

  “I just… trust me, I just do.”

  Eira reached me and gripped my arm. “You can feel her, can’t you?”

  “I think so. It’s difficult to explain.”

  “You’re holding the scythe,” she said, giving me a warm and understanding smile. “It’s not that hard to figure out.”

  Even so, the entire concept was still mind-boggling. We’d been wandering around for hours, for the better part of a day, trying to figure out what this place was. Baethal had been so evasive and irritating. He could’ve just told us where we were—but then, he knew what our purpose was. Like he’d said himself, word about us traveled fast. Our mission was to find Death. Why would he ever lead us to her, when the entire universe had worked so hard to keep her hidden?

  It had only been a stroke of luck that we were here, in the first place. That Herbert had told Ibrahim where to find Mortis. That Kabbah had told Varga about Mortis to begin with. That Amelia’s desire to get to where Death was had swayed the pink waters into bringing us here… Mere flickers of goodwill and favorable fortune. Everyone else who served Death—the Reapers, specifically—had kept a tight lid on her location. Why would these three stooges have done it any differently?

  “You know what this all means, right?” Raphael muttered as he and the rest of the crew joined us closer to the cliff’s edge. “Varga and their team are on the way here. We literally beat them to it.”

  I felt a smile testing my lips.

  “Frankly, I’m still in awe of what Lumi just did. One big flashy light, and poof! Reapers be gone!” Amelia said.

  Lumi chuckled. “It wasn’t just light. It was the Word. Maybe you didn’t feel it like I did, but the Reapers definitely did. They knew what entity I represented. It’s why they didn’t immediately attack us, even though they probably had every reason to. They didn’t want to incur the wrath of the Word, and, fortunately, the Word was on my side this time.”

  “This time,” I sighed.

  “Tae, the Word doesn’t just fix my problems. If that were the case, we never would’ve had a Ta’Zan issue. The Exiled Maras never would’ve kidnapped me. I believe that this is a special situation—this moment here, I mean. We’re on Death’s turf. And the Word is as ancient as Death. Maybe it understands, like Death did so long ago, that this whole Hermessi ritual thing is unnatural. That it shouldn’t happen. And that’s why it helped.”

  “Whatever its reasons, I’m thankful it intervened,” Eira said. “It’s better than nothing, considering what we’re dealing with.”

  A distant boom made us all look up. Somewhere farther north of the waterfall building, a bright light exploded in the night sky. Something pierced the atmosphere, sending a rippling shockwave across it. We felt the sudden gust of wind smack into us, as an aftereffect.

  The light persisted, moving downward in a chaotic spiral. Lumi was the first to recognize it.

  “That’s an interplanetary spell.”

  “Varga,” I breathed, my heart swelling and crunching against my ribcage. My friends were up there, coming down, but it didn’t look like a healthy descent. Something was wrong.

  “We need to get to them, now,” Lumi said, looking at me.

  “I have to see where they land first,” I replied, though I hated having to say that.

  But it was easier for me to teleport the crew to Varga’s exact location, once I knew what that was. For now, the light bubble just shot toward the forest. I was able to estimate a trajectory for a moment, but that quickly changed as the interplanetary spell shifted, moving toward the northeast.

  “Oh, that’s going to be a rough landing,” Raphael muttered.

  I wanted nothing more than to jump up and catch them. Alas, that wasn’t an option. All we could do was wait till they were close enough to the ground for me to properly estimate a landing spot. Then, I’d just zap us over there, and hopefully, our team would be reunited.

  The only thing that bothered me about the spell bubble was the frantic speed with which it hurled itself toward the ground. It’s going to make quite a bang.

  Amelia

  Knowing that Varga’s crew was coming down at that hurling speed and that we weren’t able to do anything about it put me right on the thin, fine line between concern and despair. Even Riza was helpless inside the spell bubble—no one could teleport out of it until it dissipated, and we worried it might crash instead of landing as it normally would.

  Its chaotic trajectory and increasing speed were both signs of something that had gone terribly wrong with the interplanetary spell. But we stayed on top of the cliff, watching the light bubble shift its direction again, our hands linked, ready to teleport.

  “Oh, it’s not looking good,” I breathed.

  “I can’t steer an interplanetary spell bubble from the outside, especially since I’m not the one who cast the spell. But I’m hoping Nethissis and Acantha can keep it under control,” Lumi said, eyes on the interplanetary spell. Viola had already notified us of Varga’s enhanced crew via Telluris. “Side note, those Reapers will find another way to come at us. Just saying it now, so we’re not surprised later.”

  “You don’t think the Word was an efficient deterrent?” I asked.

  “I cannot guarantee it because I don’t know how dedicated these creatures are,” she replied. “They were ready to attack us just now. Given where we turned out to be, I expect we’ll come across more than those three Reapers, anyway. I think Death really doesn’t want to talk to anyone; otherwise, we wouldn’t have had so much trouble getting to her.”

  “Technically speaking, we didn’t have the actual trouble of reaching Mortis.” Raphael chuckled.

  “That was just a wonderful fluke. Thankfully, the pink waters reacted to Amelia’s thoughts,” Lumi said. The color from her face drained as she watched the interplanetary spell. I followed her gaze and understood why. The light bubble was fading and flickering. “That can’t be good.”

  “What’s happening?” Taeral asked.

  “The spell… it’s failing prematurely,” Lumi said.

  Taeral frowned as he watched the light bubble. From what I could tell, and provided it wouldn’t change its trajectory again, it was likely to land approximately five miles northeast of the waterfall building. Its speed increased, Mortis’s gravity playing its part. I feared the spell bubble would not withstand the force of impact, which was now imminent.

  “They’re at two hundred feet altitude,” I announced. “One-eighty.”

  “I think I have a location,” Taeral replied.

  “One-sixty,” I said.

  “Let’s go, then,” Lumi sighed.

  A split second later, we were deep in the northeastern woods, five miles from the strange building. The waterfalls roar
ed somewhere behind us, the streams rushing through the forest, originating from the ring-shaped pond as they made their way outward across the land.

  Above, the bright light faltered as the spell bubble came down. We stilled, watching it dim and burst into white flashes as it continued its fall.

  “One-forty,” I muttered.

  Lumi stepped forward, motioning at a patch of tall trees. She glanced at Taeral for a moment. “Is this where they’re bound to crash?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Like I said, unless the trajectory makes a sudden shift.”

  “Okay. Let me see what I can do,” she said, putting her arms out as she began a whispering chant. Her skin lit up whitish-blue, her head dipping forward.

  My breath got stuck in my throat, watching as the trees in that two-hundred-yard radius patch she’d pointed at began to moan and crack. The trunks seemed as though they’d been made of rubber, bending outward as a means to clear and soften the impact area. The trees were almost horizontal now, stretching in a circular pattern, their luscious crowns rustling and moving toward the center of that patch. It was as if they’d been turned to Play-Doh, serving Lumi’s purpose as they formed a natural cushion of branches and leaves, the hard wood left beneath in a swirl.

  “One hundred feet,” I said.

  The light bubble roared as it came down, its speed increasing significantly. I worried this tree trick wouldn’t be enough. Taeral seemed to catch my drift simply by looking at me. He joined Lumi and put his hands up. Though a naturally fire-inclined half-fae, he was still able to muster some of the wind power. I could feel the breeze changing its direction as Taeral managed to shift the air as a way of slowing the bubble down.

  I felt helpless, unable to do much other than watch the spell bubble come down. The winds weren’t enough to reduce its speed much. The difference they were making was the bare minimum, and it was taking its toll on Taeral. He grunted from the effort, a thin sheet of sweat covering his face.

  Eira breathed out and wiggled her fingers. “Dammit, we can do better,” she murmured.

  I heard the rush of water getting closer. Streams shot out from the woods behind us, like crystalline blue snakes. They answered Eira’s Hermessi call and reached out toward the light bubble—five of them, thickening as they stretched upward. She hadn’t done such a large-scale manipulation before, and it was obvious that it was a lot of hard work.

  “Sixty feet,” I said. “You can do it!”

  The spell bubble grew bigger, ramming through the wind barrier that Taeral had managed to summon. The water trunks hit it, head on, but the light orb kept going, crackling and fading and flickering. Eira grunted as she pushed more water at it, until it looked as though the spell bubble was pushing upstream.

  “Yes, attagirl!” Raphael exclaimed, grinning as the combined efforts of Taeral and Eira finally began to pay off. The interplanetary spell was finally slowing down, less than forty feet from the leafy cushion that Lumi was keeping in place with her swamp witch magic. It had to be a difficult trick to pull, holding so many trees down for this.

  “Uh-oh,” I managed, as the least-expected thing happened.

  The light bubble popped into a rain of white sparks, and Varga’s crew wound up falling from a dangerous altitude, screeching and yelling. I saw Riza reaching out to grab Herakles, who, in turn, caught Eva’s hand. They vanished and reappeared on the ground in front of us.

  Before anyone could react, Taeral disappeared and Raphael flew upward, his wings stretched and flapping frenetically. Riza gasped, noticing the way the rest of the crew scattered, thanks to the very winds that Taeral had thrown at them to help slow them down.

  “Oh boy, oh boy, oh God!” I croaked and covered my mouth, watching with an even mix of terror and hope as Taeral succeeded in teleporting himself midair—he caught Varga and vanished again, reappearing next to Riza, Herakles, and Eva. I wound up screaming with delight when Raphael shot through the sky and snatched Acantha and Nethissis just twenty feet from the ground. Riza, in turn, teleported up in the air and gripped Fallon by the back of his neck. A moment later, they were back on the ground, and Fallon was panting, pale as a sheet of paper and likely scared out of his mind. Not that I could blame him.

  As soon as he landed them both safely, our crew was reunited, breathing a collective sigh of relief. Lumi gradually released the trees from their cushioning position, the trunks groaning as they resumed their upright reach for the heavens, their crowns shuffling and wiggling and stretching to cover the starry sky.

  “Oh, man, it is so good to see you all!” Taeral exclaimed.

  Varga’s entire crew was understandably astonished. We didn’t care, though. We rushed and hugged each of them, breathing in familiar scents. Acantha and Nethissis weren’t spared, either. Lumi held them tight in her arms, kissing their cheeks and thanking them for accomplishing such a difficult spell.

  “What in the world are you guys doing here?!” Varga asked. “How did you get here?”

  “We’ve been on Mortis all along,” I said, laughing. “And we had no freaking clue!”

  “How… How is that even possible?” Eva replied, her yellow eyes big and round and filled with wonder and amazement.

  “The pink waters. They’ll take you where you ask to go. We only just fully understood this ourselves. Until now, we thought they were so-called ‘portals to the gods,’ as in portals to somewhere, but we didn’t know for sure that we had any control over the destination,” I said, then measured each of Varga’s crew from head to toe. “We’ll tell you all about it, but first, are you okay? Is anybody hurt?”

  Lumi checked Acantha and Nethissis carefully. She cursed under her breath. “These two are worn out. They overexerted themselves.”

  Nethissis wiped her bleeding nose and smiled. “We’ll be okay. It was just extremely difficult to first get off Calliope, then steer the spell down onto Mortis.”

  “What happened? How did the light bubble break down like that?” Lumi asked.

  “We’re not sure. It began faltering shortly after we breached the atmosphere,” Acantha explained. Dark rings had settled around her eyes, unnatural for a healthy Bajang. Lumi was right. They’d exhausted themselves up there. “It lost its direction, and we couldn’t control it anymore. We depleted the serium batteries, but still, we couldn’t do much.”

  “We gave them all the energy they could get out of us, too,” Varga added. “It still broke.”

  “What matters most is that you’re here,” Lumi said, cupping his face. She kissed his forehead and smiled. “Don’t you ever scare us like that again.”

  I wanted to bask in this momentary relief for as long as I could, but I knew that the interplanetary spell failing like that was no coincidence, and that, as Lumi had mentioned earlier, there was the risk of more Reapers coming after us. She’d made it quite clear that the Word wasn’t to be fully relied upon, and I worried…

  I worried that our troubles were still in their incipient phase. That the worst was yet to come.

  Lumi

  Despite my smile, dark questions piled up inside me.

  After the brief outburst of the Word earlier, which had been powerful enough to scare off those three Reapers, I could no longer feel it. My connection to the Word was still there, but… it sounded like radio silence. Like whoever had been on the other side of the line had stepped out for a moment, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand why or what had possessed the Word to react like that, in the first place.

  And while I was thrilled for our team to be reunited and even enriched by the presence of Acantha, Nethissis, and Fallon, I worried. The interplanetary spell wasn’t supposed to react like this. The light bubble was meant to be impervious to atmospheric pressure and friction. As my apprentices told us about what happened the moment they took off from Luceria’s platform, a startling truth began to form in the back of my head.

  The Hermessi had been strong enough to push the spell bubble off its trajectory, nearly keeping it grou
nded. It had taken great effort from Nethissis and Acantha to get it up and off Calliope—enough to make their bodies suffer. The damage to their biological systems would pass, but I hadn’t seen exertion like this in millennia. It wasn’t natural. But it was also eye-opening, as connections began to form in my head.

  Maybe this was why the Word had intervened earlier. The Hermessi’s powers had grown to the point where they could tamper with swamp witch magic—previously indestructible spells were now at risk… This wasn’t natural. And it certainly wasn’t okay. There was supposed to be balance in nature, and the Hermessi had blown that up in the pursuit of completing their ritual.

  “Vampire blood didn’t help, either,” Eva told us. “I gave Acantha and Nethissis a significant amount, yet they were still weak, their recovery a little too slow for what we needed inside that spell bubble.”

  I nodded slowly, giving both swamp witches a loving smile. They were like my daughters, as apprentices, and I couldn’t bear the thought of losing them. Acantha seemed to notice my concern. “We’re okay, Lumi. We’re just worn out. That’s all. At least we made it down here without splattering all over the place.”

  “Yeah, I’m perfectly okay with not turning to mush,” Fallon added.

  “You’d have broken some bones, but you would’ve recovered, especially from that altitude,” Amelia replied.

  “It was still scary. I doubt any of us want to be incapacitated at this point in time,” Fallon said with a cool smirk.

  “The Hermessi’s power is becoming dangerous even to the swamp witches,” I said, reducing the entire team to a most saddening silence. It was finally sinking in, this truth I’d been processing for the past couple of minutes. “The closer they get to the five million fae they need for their ritual, the stronger they are. I fear that their retaliation will only get more violent, going forward.”

  “And the Reapers here aren’t helping, either.” Taeral sighed. He brought Varga and the others up to speed on everything that had happened since we’d reached this world, including his own experiences with the scythe and Baethal. Amelia took a moment to notify Phoenix that we were back together again, after which she put the pink water issue to rest, once and for all.