A Shade of Vampire 86: A Break of Seals

by Forrest, Bella

  “Yes, clearly your experiences in the Blood Arena have served you well,” Derek replied, slightly amused. But his humor faded as he glanced up, then to the side, where a mass of Aeternae had begun boiling again. “What’s going on with the sky?”

  Lumi smirked. “I can explain that one. Corbin must’ve been the one who put the ‘mazir’ haze around Visio, Rimia, and Nalore. We already know that mazir and death magic are pretty much the same. In the case of the living using the latter, the spells die if the caster dies. It must be the same for mazir, hence the haze finally going away.”

  The sun came out, and the sky was blue again. The view above us was glorious, but only some of us vampires could be in the light like this, and I had to keep my hood and mask on. I had taken the day-walking cure, though I had yet to complete the treatment, but Rose, Caleb, Sofia, and Derek were all okay. To be fair, I wasn’t sure how much it even mattered, since releasing Unending from her seals would render us mortal, anyway. I’d stopped caring.

  “Which means our ships and the Shade observatory will have no problem seeing the planets,” Derek replied. “It’ll help them identify our location much more quickly.”

  “Either way, we must prepare for the worst,” Kalon reminded us with a somber expression. We all followed his gaze just as the Spirit Bender finally found his voice again. He was still standing over Corbin’s body, galaxy eyes fixed on the Master of Darkness’s severed head.

  Exhaling sharply, he pursed his lips for a moment, as if his dog had eaten his favorite shoe or something. That was the vibe of discontent that he was giving off—as if this was extremely inconvenient, but nowhere near as disastrous as it really was.

  “This is not how I thought this would go,” he mumbled, then looked up at the Darklings closest to him. “You do realize I have to chase after her now, right?”

  He didn’t get an answer, just more confused and worried looks. No one had a solution to this problem, and that was what ultimately set him off. Our troops were already in position. Lumi and Kailani had fortified the defensive shield. There was only so much we could do until it came down. Waiting was the worst part of all this, whether it was waiting for Unending to free herself or waiting for Spirit’s armies of tens of thousands of Aeternae to break the protective shield and overwhelm us.

  Spirit raised his double-edged blade and quickly walked over to one of the Darklings. He whispered something as he moved. The Darkling stood still, unsure what would come next. His eyes bulged when the scythe’s blade lit up red. Spirit cut him, and the Darkling froze for a split second. He wasn’t bleeding. He wasn’t injured at all. The Reaper had just taken over his soul. The Darkling was now his forever—that was how his power worked, according to the Time Master.

  “You. Cut everyone around you with your blade, then tell them to do the same to those around them. Use whatever sharp weapon you have. Spread my influence until every single one of you foolish bloodsuckers is under my direct command!” Spirit snarled, a vein throbbing in his temple. He looked at the protective shield while the Darkling did as he was told.

  “I’m getting queasy,” I murmured, watching Spirit’s influence spread through a death magic spell. It didn’t matter that those he infected didn’t have scythes of their own—anything worked; knives, swords, claws. There was more to his power than Time had told us, but I could see the toll that the conjuring had taken on him. Spirit wobbled on his feet for a moment, blinking rapidly as he tried to get himself back under control.

  “He’s not all there,” Kalon said, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “Even I can tell. Without Thayen, Unending might have a shot at defeating him, after all.”

  “That’s still going to be a stretch. Unending has a body, and Thayen is with her. Nothing stops Spirit from killing the kid before he faces her,” Lumi interjected, but Kailani shook her head.

  “I’m not sure about that. Replenishing his soul can’t be that cut and dry. I mean, Corbin went through some ritualistic trouble to put all the pieces together. Plus, Unending and Tristan wouldn’t let him lay a hand on the kid.”

  “Enough with the hypotheticals,” Derek replied, clearly frustrated. “This is nowhere near over, I’m afraid. Everyone, to your positions. It’s not looking good, so be on guard.”

  Derek had a point. The Darklings had infected the Aeternae with the power of his influence. Spirit was weaker, yes, but he didn’t lack for resources or knowledge. He was far superior to most of the other enemies GASP had dealt with in the past. I wanted to believe that we’d defeat him like we had the rest of them, but a part of me couldn’t let go of doubt. How could I, considering what we were up against?

  “Guys, we have a problem,” Soul managed, and only then did I see it. “Kelara is still under the ghoulish curse.”

  Indeed, she continued struggling with her affliction, despite Corbin being dead. “How can this be? The original spell caster is dead!” I replied.

  Lumi didn’t have an answer, but the Night Bringer offered a theory. “Perhaps it’s beyond the spell caster’s power or lack thereof to stop it. I know of death magic curses that live beyond the Reaper who placed them. Spirit himself mentioned them once. I learned but one, but I don’t have the details on what the others entail. This could be one of them.”

  “So, what, Kelara is stuck like this until Death intervenes?” Soul asked, downright disheartened. “This is not fair.”

  “We have no choice but to keep an eye on her until our maker returns,” Night said, though he was understandably displeased. “I’m sorry, brother.”

  There was enough on our plate already. I would’ve liked it if at least Kelara had been cleared of the damn ghoul curse. Nevertheless, we had to keep fighting. Straightening my back, I stayed close to Kalon and the Visentis boys. “You guys ready to protect your big brother?” I asked. Ansel, Moore, and Tudyk nodded with great conviction.

  “I should be the one who protects them, not the other way around,” Kalon grumbled.

  “Unfortunately, as you well know, you’re sick with Black Fever. Time might’ve found a way to keep your infection from spreading to everyone else—thank the stars and the death magic abilities he was endowed with—but that doesn’t mean you’re in any way capable of fighting. Leave that to us, baby,” I said, offering a loving smile.

  Spirit’s shouting startled us. “You’re all mine now! Each and every one of you! Your souls are mine! Your loyalty, mine! Your lives, mine! Unending managed to screw me over somehow… the little shrew still has some fire in her, it seems…” His voice faded for a moment as he shook his head slowly. “But rest assured, this isn’t over! I’ll find her! I’ll get what I want! And you! All of you! This is the day you were born for. The moment you were destined for since day one. Since I locked Unending under those seals! It’s time! March against Roano!”

  The crowd trembled and roared, hisses slithering from the ghouls’ throats. My blood ran cold as I watched Spirit rile the people up. These were apex predators, significantly faster and stronger than vampires. We had a dragon and some impressive forces of our own, but the Aeternae had the numbers.

  “Lay siege on this wretched shield and tear it down! Get in there!” Spirit continued with his rousing speech, pacing along the edge of the invisible dome as the sunlight danced across his double-edged blade. “Kill everyone! Every last soul! Men, women, children—no one is to be spared! Kill them and show them that this is my will! This is the will of the Aeternae, too! Murder and mayhem is the only way for you to survive! Feed their souls to the ghouls! Show no mercy, because if you fail, if you let me down, I will show no mercy to you!”

  The Darklings and the Aeternae were under his spell. Their confusion had dissolved into pure, unadulterated rage. The crowd rippled as they took their first steps toward us, and my stomach clenched in response. It would be a while before the shield came down, but it was obvious that it was never a question of “if” but of “when.”

  “Kill them all!” Spirit continued, and I couldn’t
help but roll my eyes at his self-aggrandizing garbage. He loved hearing himself speak. “They have defied me! They don’t care about you! Kill them all!”

  He vanished, leaving his army to do his dirty work for him. The masses converged on Roano from all possible sides. The Darklings raised their scythes, tapping into everything the Spirit Bender had taught them. I saw their lips move as dozens of spells left the shimmering blades. Slashes of phosphorescent white, bursts of fire, and rippling pulses of violent pink and green colors exploded from the Reaper weapons. They were aimed at the shield, and its surface flashed yellow and purple whenever the spells made contact with its surface.

  The entire dome hummed above us. I could see the sky overhead. I could see the soft glow of daylight. I could almost taste the freedom waiting at the end of this war… and yet it also felt far, far away.

  I gave Sofia a faint nod as we all banded together. Sofia and Derek, the Visentis brothers, Lumi, Kailani, and Hunter. We had the south gate, alongside Sidyan, Seeley, and Nethissis, who rushed to join us as the attack on Roano began in earnest. The others shifted in their positions, switching places here and there, as necessary. Amane and Ridan came closer, with the dragon in his full form and worriedly eyeing the frantic crowd beyond the protective shield.

  “It’s going to get worse before it gets better.” Lumi sighed. She was worried, too. It was written all over her face. They’d been through something similar before, yet this was fundamentally different. An old enemy had returned, but he was not the same one they’d vanquished a year ago.

  This victory would come at a bitter cost, too. Our vampirism would be no more.

  But I took Kalon’s hand in mine and squeezed firmly. “We’ve seen worse, haven’t we?”

  “At least Taeral is tailing the Spirit Bender,” Sofia said. “I don’t know why he can’t just go ahead and destroy him like before, though. He said he’d explain at some point, but he has yet to do that.”

  “I think it’s got something to do with Death’s orders,” I surmised. “Maybe she doesn’t want Taeral to do it. Yet.”

  “That’s just insane.” Sofia sighed, shaking her head with dismay.

  I shrugged. “Nothing surprises me with Death anymore, especially given her recent behavior.”

  “Hey, at least we’re not alone in this,” Kalon replied, smiling at me. “We’ve got the drive to pull through.”

  “We don’t have the manpower, but I love your enthusiasm,” Ansel muttered, then pressed his lips into a thin line.

  We were playing the waiting game now. The enemy was working hard to take the protective shield down. Once that was done, we would all become targets. The Aeternae had been subdued by the Spirit Bender, and for a moment I wondered why he’d done it, since they had already chosen his side. I gasped once I realized the answer. “He’s afraid they’ll chicken out if we win…”

  “What are you talking about?” Derek asked, his gaze frequently darting back to the enemy. Tension was high, thickening the air around us and making it harder for me to breathe, but fully understanding why Spirit had subdued the Aeternae gave me a flicker of hope.

  “The whole spirit-bending thing he just did,” I said. “They were already on his side. Why did he bother to coerce them with his power?”

  Kalon sucked in a breath, reaching the same conclusion I had. “He’s afraid the Aeternae will back down if Unending is free again. He wants them to die serving him, if necessary, as a final ‘screw you’ to Unending.”

  “The Spirit Bender believes there’s a chance we might win,” I replied. “We weren’t too sure about that ourselves.”

  “Until we regain our mortality, we won’t know for sure where the road leads,” Derek advised us. Behind him, about fifty yards away, Knight Ghouls and Darklings were pummeling the protective shield. The first cracks appeared—glimmering black lines, fractures that spread and danced across the dome.

  “Uh-oh…” I murmured, looking up.

  Lumi had seen this coming. “It’ll hold for a while. The black shimmer you see is the dome’s built-in spell for regeneration. It’s trying to heal. Granted, they keep hitting it, but it’s the best we could do.”

  “I take it the Word isn’t all that chatty?” I wished I could see her and Kailani glowing all weird and white again. The Word rarely manifested itself through them, but I’d hoped this might be one such pivotal moment.

  Alas, no luck on that front. “All I know is we must wait for Death,” Lumi said. “That was the Word’s last communication to me.”

  “It told me the same thing, about an hour ago,” Kailani groaned, rolling her strange eyes. “I’m getting really tired of this. What is going on? Nonchalance from the powers that be? Frivolity? Laziness? How can I describe what’s going on with the Word and Death?” She was angry, and I wholeheartedly understood where she was coming from. “Seriously. The former is barely present and only when it suits him. The latter got herself into this horrific mess to begin with by being a Chatty Kathy with a Reaper. I mean, come on…”

  Lumi sighed and hugged her, and Kailani relaxed in her embrace. A tear slipped down her cheek as she glanced over to Nethissis, who’d been watching and listening quietly this whole time.

  “And the worst part is that we lost you,” Kailani said to her, struggling not to cry. “We still don’t know what’s going to happen to you, Nethi, and that just drives me crazy.”

  “Hey, one battle at a time, okay?” Nethissis replied, her eyes smiling. The rays of sunshine shone through her, the light waltzing through her soul as though she were a fine silk veil. It was a strangely reassuring sight. Peace could be found in the most unexpected places. Hope sprang from the darkest shadows. Determination could tear down an entire mountain, and Nethissis was proof of that. “Let’s hold the front here and protect the people of Roano,” she added. “Let’s hope Unending and Tristan do their thing, too. Let’s pray that the Spirit Bender doesn’t catch up to them, and if he does, that Taeral will be able to hold him back.”

  “And let’s wish for our shuttles to come sooner rather than later,” Amane added, while the violence against the protective shield continued in the background.

  “I can’t promise we’ll get through this,” Derek said, loading up his pulverizer weapons. There weren’t many pellets left, but we’d clearly have to use what remained soon. “But I know we’ll all try our best. What will be, will be. United until the end, right?”

  I gave a faint nod, much like everybody else. Perhaps I let a “right” slip past my lips. I wasn’t even sure anymore, because the siege on Roano was already overwhelming me emotionally. We were stuck here, preparing to fight the true monsters of the universe, while my brother was out there running for his life while trying to break the Unending’s seals.

  The nightmare was nowhere near over. The nightmare had just begun.

  Tristan

  We ended up on an island in the middle of nowhere. A solitary patch of dry land with white beaches and tufts of palm trees and colorful shrubs popping up here and there. The ocean, a troubling mass of dark blue mystery, lapped at the shore with bubbly foam. A bird sang somewhere nearby, its trills evoking a tranquility we’d yet to reach for ourselves.

  Unending nearly collapsed, but I caught her in my arms. She leaned into me, her body soft and her galaxy eyes drooping. She was exhausted. “All the death magic I cast earlier is doing a number on me,” she mumbled, trying to stand upright.

  Thayen looked around, on edge, his long knife still clutched in his hand. The sun warmed my skin a little, even through my hood and mask. It took me a minute to realize what was going on. “Oh, wow. The sky…” I managed.

  “It’s blue. And I can see the sun,” Thayen said. “This is so weird.”

  “Corbin had control of the red haze spell,” Unending replied. “It died with him. Kelara’s curse didn’t, unfortunately. Not all death magic dies with the caster.”

  “Huh. So, this is what the sky is supposed to look like,” Thayen concluded, unable to
look away from the vast azure heaven above us. “Now that I see it like this, I’m thinking it was a crime to ever hide it.”

  “The Darklings wanted privacy,” I said. “No prying eyes.”

  “Yet here we are.” Thayen chuckled, though I could tell he wasn’t all that amused. I reached out and firmly squeezed his shoulder.

  “You did really good out there, kid,” I told him. “You pulled off something incredible.”

  He sighed, finally lowering his gaze. “I killed someone.”

  “You killed a man before he killed me,” I replied. “It’s important for you to make that distinction if you want to be able to live with yourself. I’m sorry you had to do it, Thayen, but you understand why it was necessary. On top of that, you saved me. I cannot express how thankful I am.”

  I helped Unending sit on a round boulder. She needed a minute to recover. Hell, she needed more than that, but a minute was the best we could do under the circumstances. Meanwhile, Thayen’s bright blue eyes continued scanning our surroundings. There wasn’t a single soul nearby, except for that songbird. I liked it.

  “I understand why it was necessary. It doesn’t make me feel better. But you’re right. We’re alive now because of what I did, and that’ll have to do. We have our work cut out for us, don’t we? Spirit will be coming for me and Unending,” Thayen said.

  “He has ways of tracking me,” Unending replied, gradually coming to. I could feel her exhaustion in my own body, as if every atom of mine mirrored hers. It took a considerable amount of effort to keep myself awake and alert. On top of that, the ache in my heart persisted. We were getting closer to the one thing I dreaded doing. The one thing she’d trusted me with—killing Valaine. Her physical form. “Which is why we can’t waste another minute. Tristan, show me my scythe.”

  I raised the weapon for her to see. It was a beautiful scythe. The blade had an elegant curvature, and its otherworldly metal alloy captured the sunlight in a peculiar pearl glow. My skin tingled as I gripped the sculpted handle, and I found it hard to let go now that I had it.