A Shade of Vampire 79: A Game of Death

by Forrest, Bella

  There was everything and nothing, all at once, and the air was replaced by swirling mists of black smoke and ash. Upon impact, the asteroid had destroyed whatever stood in the path of its shockwave. It had splintered the planet’s outer crust. It had ripped apart the atmosphere itself, somehow, and it had turned everything to dust and dirt.

  It broke my heart to see all this, while my mind struggled to keep up, to understand everything laid out so ruthlessly before my very eyes.

  “Tae… What are we doing here?”

  “Hold on. Can you see them?” he asked, pressing Thieron’s blade against my forearm again. I sucked in a breath. Reapers appeared, one by one. There were hundreds of them, clad in long black leather tunics with white collars, their hair long and braided back with blue silk threads. They moved weightlessly around, raising spirits from the catastrophe’s remains and using their scythes to reap them.

  “Oh, wow…” I managed.

  The millions of people Taeral had mentioned. Many were still here, gradually sent into the world of the dead by the hundreds of Reapers that had been dispatched to this planet.

  “They can’t see us,” Taeral said, “but we should keep our voices down. Just in case.”

  I frowned at him, and he gave me an innocent shrug. “I’m not sure how good my stealth skills are with Thieron. I’ve never kept myself and someone else hidden from so many Reapers at once.”

  This all had a specific purpose, so I didn’t ask him again about our presence here. It was all leading somewhere, so I pressed my lips into a tight line and allowed Taeral to guide me down the ridge and across the desert, our boots barely touching the crimson sand.

  We moved past Reapers who were busy pulling souls from the rubble, telling them what had happened and explaining that they were dead. My heart broke all over again whenever I heard the people sobbing as they realized that this was the end. That their lives had been snuffed out by a single wandering object that had made its way into their world.

  In the blink of an eye, it had all been obliterated. I was witnessing something I had never dealt with before. This large-scale tragedy was quite difficult to stomach, but I focused on what laid ahead—the purpose of our visit here.

  Eventually, we reached the edge of the desert, where the earth broke and sank deeper, lava lakes glowing from below. Farther down from where we stood, I could see a Reaper with long black hair and piercing galaxy eyes helping the soul of a male creature out of the smoldering lava.

  Moving closer toward him, I noticed that the Reaper kept looking around, perhaps hoping that no one would see him. His features were beautiful, almost ethereal, his skin pale and the blade of his noise perfectly straight. His lips were full and pearlescent. He was tall and well built, though not at all bulky. His frame was imposing, though his Reaper eyes were more intimidating than his physique. “What is your name?” he asked the soul.

  “Bym,” the soul replied. “What… What happened?”

  “I’m afraid the worst thing possible happened, Bym,” the Reaper said. “The death of the planet. The death of all of you. I’m sorry.”

  The soul blinked several times, staring at his semi-transparent limbs and wiggling his fingers, as if just to make sure he still had them or felt them. The look on his face didn’t confirm or deny that sensation, but he was definitely curious. “Who are you?” Bym asked.

  “I’m a Reaper. What were you doing in a prison?”

  Taeral and I listened carefully, both of us intrigued by the question. Bym wasn’t that shocked, though, so there was truth in the Reaper’s words, for sure. “I… I was locked up.”

  “For what?” the Reaper asked, occasionally glancing over his shoulder. The other Reapers were far away, moving deeper into the red desert. The air rippled above it from the heat. Thunder boomed in the distance—only it wasn’t thunder but cracks deepening into the planet’s surface, breaking and tearing and destroying whatever was left of this once-civilized world.

  Bym lowered his gaze, saddened by his own fate. “For killing…”

  “That’s Sidyan,” Taeral whispered. “One of the Reapers from the Calliope sanctuary. Not a bad fella. But he captured my interest a few months back. He’s the one I want you to meet.”

  “Why did he capture your interest?” I murmured.

  “Hold on. Give him a minute,” Taeral replied, a smile testing his lips.

  “Killing who, exactly?” Sidyan asked Bym.

  “Does it matter? I’m dead,” Bym said, sullen and grave and not at all happy with this ending.

  “It matters to me,” Sidyan replied.

  “Will it change where you take me? What is there beyond death? What will happen to me?”

  “It depends entirely on your honesty, Bym. So, tell me… Who did you kill?” Sidyan insisted, his tone cold and flat. He definitely wasn’t playing around.

  After a short hesitation, Bym sighed deeply. “My sister. Her friend. Her friend’s friend. My aunt. My mother…”

  Bile rose up in my throat. I already loathed him. But what more could be done, given how he’d died here? Sidyan took a deep breath, unrelenting in his questioning. “Why did you kill them, Bym? Did you kill them all at once?”

  Bym shook his head. “I took my time. I… I… Does it really matter?”

  Sidyan touched him with his scythe. As soon as the blade made contact with Bym’s shoulder, the wretched soul bared it all as if the time of his confession was running out, and he needed, he desperately needed to tell it all.

  “I reveled in each kill. It started with my sister, years ago, because I was curious what it would be like to take a life,” Bym said. “I loved it. I loved watching the life drain from her eyes. Knowing that I had that power. A month later, I took her friend. I took advantage of her grieving, and I slit her throat, slowly. Then another girl, and another… One day, I was itching for another kill. I’d gotten away with so many. I was so strong, so powerful… I don’t know what happened. My mother said something… something that upset me, and I killed her, too.”

  “How were you caught?” Sidyan asked quietly, watching the other Reapers, a muscle ticking in his sharp jaw.

  “My father walked in. Killing my mother had not been planned. It was impulse. Pure impulse. I lost control, I wasn’t careful.”

  “Do you regret murdering any of them?”

  Bym shook his head. “No. I would do it all over again if I could. When the earth started shaking, I thought this was my chance to escape, so I could keep slitting throats and feeding on the cries of these women begging for my mercy.” He gasped, his eyes wide with shock. “Why am I telling you all this?!”

  “Because I made you tell the truth,” Sidyan said. “Come now, Bym. It’s time for you to move on,” he added, putting an arm around the spirit’s shoulders.

  “Where… Where are we going?” Bym asked. “Is there a hell? Am I going to hell?”

  It didn’t come as a surprise that other civilizations believed in afterlife punishment for their deeds. The Eritopians had similar faiths, as did some of the Nerakians and inhabitants of other planets I’d visited before the Exiled Maras had trapped me. It was a recurring idea across the In-Between that our actions were punishable by superior forces, one way or another.

  The pixies, my species, believed that the universe gave back what you put into it. If you murdered, you would lose someone to murder, if not your own life. If you lied, then someone would lie to you, and so on. I remembered Amelia mentioning the earthly concept of karma, which was eerily similar to ours.

  “What is beyond death cannot be quantified in such terms,” Sidyan said to Bym. “The universe does not sit in judgment of the living.”

  That somehow seemed to reassure Bym, and we followed them farther away from the other Reapers. We passed a tall and thick cluster of red, jagged rocks, until no one else was in sight. I nearly screamed when a small ghoulish-looking creature emerged from behind one of the stones.

  Taeral squeezed my arm in a bid to reassure me,
and I held my breath.

  Bym was downright confused, not that I could blame him. “What’s happening?”

  “But I can judge you, and I can also feed a friend while I’m at it,” Sidyan replied, and pushed Bym forward. The spirit stumbled and fell, whimpering.

  The ghoulish creature was half my size, with more humanoid features than most of its kind. Most of the hair had fallen, but what was left was long and black and silky. There were feminine lines blurred by the almost-transparent skin, muscles still twitching and vessels still filled with flowing red blood. “What the hell is that?” I asked.

  “It’s a ghoul,” Taeral said. “Though unlike anything I’ve seen before. To be fair, I’ve only seen the meat-eaters from Herbert’s crew… I think this one might be an original ghoul, like the ones from Nevertide. But it’s pretty small.”

  “No… Stay away from me!” Bym screamed, but to no avail. The ghoul pounced and tore him apart, eating every thread of his soul, its skin glimmering with delight. Its eyes were wide and not all black. I could still see the irises, in which galaxies still shone, much like the Reapers’.

  Sidyan didn’t say a word. He just stood there and watched Bym get eaten, until there was nothing left, except for a very contented, purring little ghoul. He seemed satisfied with the outcome, while I struggled to make sense of everything I had just witnessed.

  I remembered there were some pretty strict rules about this. On one hand, I honestly didn’t mind watching that monster get eaten by another monster, but, at the same time, I wondered… wasn’t this “illegal” in the world of Reapers?

  “It’s showtime,” Taeral muttered, then whispered briefly against Thieron’s blade, revealing us both. “Sidyan! It’s been a while, buddy!”

  The Reaper froze, his galaxy eyes wide and filled with horror. The ghoul was equally frightened. It scampered backward and hid behind his long tunic. There was nothing about its behavior to suggest aggression. It was weird, especially when I compared the creature to others of its kind.

  “Taeral,” Sidyan managed. “You… What are you doing here? What’s the swamp witch doing here?!”

  I figured he knew us without ever having actually met us. The Reaper network of information was wide and practically endless. It didn’t exactly come as a surprise that Sidyan had been so quick to recognize us. But everything about this particular moment was intriguing. We’d caught him doing something terrible, according to the laws of Reapers.

  “I figured if I showed my friend what you’ve been up to, she’d have a better understanding of why I’m so sure you’re going to help us,” Taeral said, grinning like the devil. “By the way, feeding a soul to a ghoul. What sort of punishment does that carry?”

  Sidyan’s pale face turned red with anger, but he put his scythe away, his hands then balling into tight fists—so tight that the knuckles turned white. The ghoul eyed us warily, after having found a mild sense of safety behind him.

  “Don’t worry, Lumi,” Taeral continued when Sidyan didn’t reply. “He cannot hurt us. I’m Death’s protégé. He wouldn’t dare.”

  “I wouldn’t, period,” Sidyan hissed. “I can explain this.”

  “I’m sure you can, especially since it’s not the first time I’ve seen you do it,” Taeral said. It caught Sidyan’s attention.

  “You’ve been following me?”

  “Sort of. Gotta thank Thieron for its stealth capabilities. I thought I might learn a few more Reaper tricks from you,” Taeral replied. “But then I saw you feeding a murderous incubus to your pet ghoul earlier this year, and I figured I could learn more about you instead. Lo and behold, we stand here today, about to make a deal.”

  Sidyan froze, his brows drawn into a deep frown. I realized then exactly how I was going to reach Visio without anyone knowing. I was going to ride the cosmic wings of a Reaper who would have no choice but to help us, since Taeral was about to blackmail him regarding his ghoul.

  “Who is the creature?” I asked, nodding at it.

  “Her name is Maya,” Sidyan retorted. “And none of this is her fault!”

  Taeral cocked his head to the side. “She ate a soul to become this, didn’t she? Is she an original ghoul? Pre-meat-eating stage?”

  “She died young, and she had been tapped to become a Reaper. And yes, she’s an original ghoul, though obviously tiny, given the young age at which she passed.” Sidyan sighed. “She didn’t fully understand what it was all about at the time. I took her under my tutelage. I tried… I tried to help her, but she strayed. She got in with the wrong crowd.”

  “Other ghouls?” I replied.

  Sidyan nodded briefly. “By the time I found her again, she was all alone and nearly torn to shreds. They fooled her into eating a soul, and then they made fun of her. They bullied her. They treated her like garbage, and she nearly got herself killed by another Reaper. I’ve been keeping her close since. Once a year or so, though sometimes sooner, I find her a soul to eat. She’s young as a ghoul, so she’s got an appetite. But I never feed her an innocent. She only eats murderers.”

  The way Maya had been turned reminded me of Herbert. I had a feeling that a lot of these ghouls ended up in such predicaments by trusting the wrong people. I crossed my arms. “So you’re judging people, then. Like you said to Bym earlier. Do you think that’s fair?”

  “It’s not. But it’s the best I can do to keep Maya safe. She’s a good soul. She just fell in with the wrong crowd. She didn’t even belong as a Reaper… far too young to be able to embrace a near-eternity helping others cross over. What happened to her wasn’t fair. And here we are, trying our best to stay out of everyone’s way.”

  “Won’t anyone notice Bym’s gone?” Taeral asked.

  Maya stared at me, curiosity glimmering in her dark eyes. Her canines poked out between her small, thin lips, the essence of Bym’s soul still smeared at the corner of her mouth. Only then did I notice that she still had her old Reaper uniform on, though it was tattered and torn. It covered most of her torso and upper legs as she crouched behind Sidyan.

  “With a catastrophe like this? No,” Sidyan replied. “No one truly checks these things. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have risked doing it in the first place.”

  “And you’ve never considered… you know, putting her out of her misery?” I murmured. Maya could understand me. I could tell. My words frightened her, as she clutched the bottom of Sidyan’s tunic.

  “Never. I would never,” Sidyan said firmly. “She’s safer with me. She’s loyal. She keeps her distance when she has to, and I make sure she doesn’t go hungry for more than a year or so. We have control over her condition. I don’t like it any more than you do, but it was the only way I could protect her.”

  Taeral nodded and looked at me. “And here comes the proposition,” he whispered. Shifting his focus back to Sidyan, he laid out the terms of the deal. “I know you want to protect Maya. That much I’ve figured out from watching you sneak souls out to feed her. Which is also why I know you won’t say no to helping Lumi, here.”

  Sidyan took a couple of steps back, already troubled. Maya moved with him, increasingly agitated and scared, trembling and growling at us. He motioned for her to stop, and she did. But her emotions were getting the better of her, and she squirmed and whimpered anxiously.

  “What are you talking about?” Sidyan asked.

  “Lumi needs to get to Visio undetected by the living and the dead alike,” Taeral said. “She needs a Reaper’s traveling assistance. I think you can guess why I thought of you.”

  “No. Are you crazy? It’s against the rules!” Sidyan replied.

  “Really? Now we’re talking about rules?” Taeral chuckled. “Dude. You’re raising a friggin’ ghoul. I’m pretty sure you can mule my friend over to Visio, and I promise I’ll keep quiet about your extracurricular activities.” He paused, since Sidyan didn’t seem entirely convinced. “Forever. I’ll keep quiet forever,” Taeral added.

  “You’re insane. Why don’t you take her?”

&
nbsp; “With Thieron? You must be joking. The few minutes I’m spending here are the only ones with complete privacy,” Taeral said. “Most of the time, I can feel Reapers watching me. Death keeps tabs on me, and I can’t risk it. Besides, I don’t have the knowledge to take Lumi so far away. I’m not a Reaper yet, and Thieron isn’t exactly the easiest object to work with, either.”

  I took a step forward, hoping to persuade Sidyan with my personal truth. “I suppose you’ve heard about Visio and the Aeternae?” I asked.

  “Some rumors here and there about your people finding that place,” Sidyan replied. I had a feeling he knew more but wasn’t ready to share. Yet.

  “Have you heard about what happened to Nethissis? One of my people who went there…”

  Sidyan nodded. “I’m sorry for your loss. Word travels fast among the Reapers.”

  “Well, I need to find out what happened to her, and I can’t do it with others knowing I’m there. The Aeternae are adamant that no other GASP member should enter their world. Especially not someone like me, who’s investigating foul play on their turf.”

  Sidyan didn’t say anything, so I moved another inch or so, slipping my arm from around Taeral’s and catching his hand instead to keep physical contact. My approach startled Maya, though it wasn’t my intention. She yelped and vanished into thin air, prompting Sidyan to curse in a language I’d never even heard before.

  “Shakri’lis fen!” he spat, then scowled at me. “You scared her away, swamp witch!”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  He cut me off. “I’ll help you. I’ll take you to Visio, as long as Prince Numbskull here keeps his trap shut! But first, you’re coming with me so I can find Maya. I can’t leave her on her own.”

  It took me a moment to process the situation, but I ended up nodding in agreement. Looking at Taeral, I noticed he was still smiling. “I don’t know what it is you find funny,” I grumbled.