A Shade of Vampire 79: A Game of Death

by Forrest, Bella

  “How did you know where to find me?”

  I remembered him saying something about my heartbeat, but the overall fuzz was persistent. Kalon was right. It would take time to recover.

  He chuckled softly, leaning in closer. I had never seen him like this, so… warm. He’d been charming and funny and friendly. Sometimes he’d made me feel as though there was something more between us, but he’d never touched me this tenderly. Even last night felt like a light breeze compared to the way he was looking at me now, or the way his fingers brushed against my skin.

  “We both knew Trev would be in the palace garden at that hour. And I knew you’d be there, even though I wouldn’t be able to see you. I figured out your little magic trick. I almost lost you both behind the curtain, as I didn’t have the advantage of invisibility to sneak down into the basement. It’s why… It’s why I was late in coming for you,” he said, his voice wavering. “I am sorry I couldn’t get to you sooner.”

  “It’s okay, Kalon. You saved my life,” I replied, squeezing his hand. “You saved my life, and I don’t know if I will ever be able to repay you.”

  “No need,” he whispered, then got up and dropped a kiss on my forehead. His lips were so warm and soft, I nearly fainted. Luckily, I was already lying down; otherwise, I might’ve made a fool of myself. “Now… rest up, Esme. Your brother will be back soon. And I’ll come around later. I need to consult with Derek, Sofia, Corbin, and Valaine. The Darklings may have gone into hiding, but their threat is still very real.”

  I suddenly deflated like a sad beach ball abandoned in the sun. I would’ve wanted him to stay, but he had work to do. Important work that would get us closer to the Darklings. Catching them and wiping them off the face of this planet had become a priority for all of us. We could leave Amal and Amane to handle everything else regarding the protein and the Black Fever.

  There are pulverizer weapons on the shuttle. The thought crossed my mind like a flying arrow as Kalon walked out and left me to my own devices. There were pulverizer weapons on the shuttle, with plenty of ammunition. It was time to think of a way to bring it up with the Lord and Lady Supreme, because if push came to shove, I wanted to be able to destroy every single Darkling out there and rid Visio of this horrible threat.

  Maybe then, I’d be able to relax and really look at whatever was brewing between Kalon and me. There was something… something deeper than I’d thought. But the Darklings loomed over our heads, ruining everything.

  I’d ruin them first, before they inflicted any more damage on me or anyone else.

  Lumi

  “I should’ve been on Visio by now,” I muttered.

  We’d been wandering from planet to planet for three days, following Maya’s trail. At least she wasn’t an exceptional ghoul, since she’d left traces for Sidyan to pick up on. But this was taking too long, and I had serious business to attend to. If, at first, I’d been sympathetic toward Maya’s situation, my patience had begun to thin. I’d heard the communications between Derek and GASP through my earpiece. I knew Zoltan had killed Nethissis. I had to find him and kill him. It was the only retribution fit for what he had done.

  “Your snippy attitude isn’t helping,” Sidyan replied.

  The sequoia-like forest rose around us like sleeping giants, with trees as tall as mountains and trunks bigger than The Shade’s redwoods. It was magnificent, and, on a different occasion, I might’ve enjoyed a walkthrough, but this was not the right time. Vengeance called out to me, begging me to go after Zoltan. I could find him. I knew I could find him, especially with Sidyan by my side.

  He held out his scythe, its blade glimmering, as it had caught another trail of Maya’s. She’d been through here recently, judging by the intensity of its light. Sidyan’s mood was as foul as mine. He didn’t enjoy this any more than I did, especially since he’d been blackmailed into helping me, to begin with. I did feel sorry for him, but that wasn’t going to get me to Visio.

  “She’s around here somewhere,” he added, cursing under his breath. “You scared her away.”

  “What the hell did I do? It’s not like I went all ooga-booga-booga on her!” I replied, downright exasperated. “It’s not my fault she’s skittish.”

  “Shush.”

  “Don’t shush me!”

  But he did shush me again, this time bringing an index finger up to his lips while using his scythe to point somewhere northeast of our location. Squinting, I managed to pick up on movement between the massive trees. A small figure with translucent skin and scarce black hair, tearing into a small animal and eating its skittish and terrified soul. For a moment, I felt queasy, until I realized we were looking at Maya. We’d finally found her!

  After three bleeping days!

  Sidyan motioned for me to stay put. He vanished and reappeared behind her. Before Maya could react, he snapped a thin red collar around her neck, the runes lighting up yellow for a second. She screeched and growled, quite unhappy with her predicament, but she couldn’t run away anymore, as Sidyan used his hand movements to control the collar.

  “Your fault, sweetie,” he said to her. “You are making me do this. Our relationship is based on trust, and if I can’t trust you, well… the collar says it all.”

  She snarled at him, and he snapped his fingers. In an instant, the collar dragged her down, forcing her to all fours. Maya whimpered, trying to rip the restraint from her neck, but nothing worked. Her claws couldn’t even scratch the red leather.

  “Once you’re on your best behavior again, I’ll take it off,” Sidyan replied.

  It took her a while, but she eventually accepted her fate. He came back to me, and she followed him. She took a moment to scowl at me, as if I were to blame for any of this. Which was ridiculous, but at least we’d managed to solve this one annoying problem.

  Sidyan took my hand, and my whole arm nearly caught fire. Touching him was mandatory while traveling in Reaper-mode, but every time his skin met mine, strange reactions occurred deep within me, and I couldn’t figure out why he had that effect on my very being.

  “Take deep breaths, and don’t let anything you see scare you,” Sidyan said, galaxies spreading in his eyes. Sunlight burst through the overhead crowns, drawing shadows across his face. He was a handsome creature, despite the chills his mere presence sent down my spine, and I knew he had a heart, given his weakness for little Maya.

  The more time I spent with him, the more I began to wonder what he was like. I hadn’t experienced thoughts like this in a very long time. To say that I was intrigued would’ve been one hell of an understatement, but I trusted the universe in its mighty randomness. As chaotic as everything seemed, every piece, every moment had its place in the world.

  There was logic in this madness.

  So I went with the flow, having lived for too long to question such encounters. I did as Sidyan told me, taking deep breaths as everything warped around us. The giant trees disappeared, along with the rest of the planet.

  The oceans swirled past us, the lava core with its flaming orange streaks.

  And then darkness. The void of space, as Sidyan and I walked through the wormholes leading to Visio. Maya stayed close, but as soon as the solar system emerged before us, she became restless.

  I gasped at the sight. It was as beautiful and as strange as Derek had described it. The reddish haze persisted around Visio and its two neighboring planets, Rimia and Nalore. The color display beyond that magic was extraordinary. Greens and blues so intense that my soul expanded with wonder. Whites and reds so pure that my heart tingled, ever so slightly.

  Shuttles moved to and from Visio, their lights flickering yellow and purple.

  It looked so beautiful. So… normal. Yet there was darkness dwelling in this place; I could feel it. As we got closer, Maya growled in protest, trying to get away, but Sidyan kept her close by force.

  “There’s something here she doesn’t like,” I said.

  “If what Seeley said about this world is true, then I would
be as creeped out as Maya right now,” Sidyan replied.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, as we finally set foot on dry land, the imperial city rising ahead with its majestic buildings and proud towers, ships glistening in the massive harbor to our left.

  “According to him, and I know this from a brief conversation I had with Kelara not long ago, there aren’t any Reapers here. No souls, either. No ghouls or ghosts. Nothing. Literally nothing, except for the living.”

  That struck me as odd. “How is that possible?”

  “I don’t know. But since we’re here, we might as well find out,” Sidyan said. “Once you do whatever it is you’re planning to do with that Zoltan guy.”

  I stared at him, then at Maya for a moment. “I get the strange part about this place, the absence of post-death entities… but how does that scare her? Why would it scare you, too?”

  A smile tried his lips. He gazed into the distance, taking in the complex sight of a city brimming with life and culture, a world unlike his or mine. “Maya and I… we’re used to death, in general. Wandering souls, angry ghosts… Reapers, other ghouls. Death herself, as a concept, at least. Not having that around is scary, because we wonder… if death doesn’t exist here, what happens to the people who die on Visio? Or on Nalore or Rimia?”

  I looked up at the sky, wondering about the magic used to conceal this place from our telescope. “Do you think it’s got something to do with the red haze?”

  “It might, I don’t know. It felt a little strange passing through it.”

  “Strange?”

  “Familiar, but like nothing I’ve ever experienced before, at the same time,” Sidyan said, giving me a long sideways glance.

  Only two minutes in, and we both had questions about Visio. Maya was shaking by Sidyan’s side, and I was dying to get my hands on Zoltan Shatal. Between the three of us, there was a lot to be done, and since nobody else knew I was here—except for Taeral and Eira, at least—I had a certain amount of freedom that Derek and his crew lacked.

  If any of the Aeternae were hiding something… well, I was eager to dig deep, until all their secrets saw the light of day. There was definitely something fishy here. The Word hummed inside me, almost urging me to go ahead.

  How could I refuse, with all this mystery in plain sight? Besides, I had a feeling I might come in handy later, even to Derek and the others. Unlike them, I had a Reaper in my service. And a partially obedient ghoul.

  Whatever Visio planned to throw at me, I was ready.

  What’s next?

  Dear Shaddict,

  Thank you for reading A Game of Death!

  See the details for the next Shade book, ASOV 80: A Veil of Dark, right after the following announcement:

  I’m excited to reveal my brand new supernatural romance called Darklight, which releases September 8, 2019. All new characters, an all new world… I’ve included a special sneak peek of the first 3 chapters in this book, so keep turning the pages if you’re curious! (P.S. And I hope you love the cover!)

  Blurb:

  "Vampires don’t exist. At least, not anymore..."

  I celebrated when vampires were declared extinct.

  Those monsters had preyed on humanity for millennia, committing senseless, brutal murders. Like the rest of my colleagues at the Occult Bureau, I looked forward to a world where we could all sleep at night—where constant cover-up jobs were no longer required to keep the public calm and unaware.

  But the end of vampires wasn’t the end of our problems. It was only the beginning.

  Other blood-sucking creatures began to lurk in the night. As soon as I turned twenty-one, I became a ground agent at the Bureau because I wanted—no, needed—to join the fight.

  And then Dorian Clave burst into my life—turning everything I thought I knew into quicksand. Vampires like him were killers who devoured humanity’s inner darkness until shadows danced beneath their skin. Yet there was more to him than that.

  He showed me that light cannot exist without the dark, and that trying to fight this balance would have consequences our human minds couldn’t even comprehend.

  Because sometimes darkness needs to exist.

  Pre-order links:

  Amazon US: Tap here

  Amazon UK: Tap here

  Amazon AU: Tap here

  Any other store: Tap here

  Keep turning for the bonus chapters!

  Darklight Chapter 1

  I focused on the five dark silhouettes perched atop the Ferris wheel of Navy Pier Park. The ride was closed for renovation, but crowds of tourists bustled on either side of its boarded-up enclosure: a steady stream of warm targets.

  “Team A, be ready,” I breathed into my comm, and glanced to my teammates behind me within the wheel’s perimeter. Six helmeted heads nodded back, their hands tightening around silver barrels.

  “Team B is going in,” came the low, confident voice of my brother and second-in-command.

  A large helicopter whirred overhead, drawing closer to the wheel and slowly circling it.

  I glanced at my watch. “Greta, you should be in position.”

  “Yup, and waiting for your command, Lyra,” came the clipped voice of Team C’s leader.

  “Start the haze,” I replied.

  The hiss of decompressing gas filled the cool spring night, and Greta boomed through a megaphone: “Please evacuate the pier. This is an emergency. Head for the children’s museum. You will receive further information there. I repeat, please evacuate the pier.”

  Beyond the enclosure’s walls, a semi-dense fog billowed from the ground, covering the crowd. Shouts and cries rang out, followed by a stampede of panicked footsteps. I refocused on the wheel’s apex, ignoring the guilt that panged in my chest at the sounds of alarm and confusion. The smokescreen could be inconvenient and frightening, but ultimately it would prevent the tourists from being targeted.

  The silhouettes started shifting, clearly noticing the helicopter and the commotion. I caught the rustle of an opening wing.

  Placing some distance between myself and the base of the wheel, I raised my gun, and my colleagues did the same. “All right, Team A. On my count. Three, two, one…”

  I aimed for the largest shadow and fired, my entire body vibrating from the force of the bullet’s release. I heard the creature’s rasping cry, as guttural and grating as a vulture’s, followed by four others as my teammates hit their marks.

  But the shadows barely jerked. Instead, their massive wings shot out, and they launched into the air so fast that I lost them in the darkness.

  It was far from my first encounter with the strange avian species, but I still shivered when the light from the nearby Wave Swinger attraction touched their sleek, ink-black forms. In many ways, each resembled the common stork—long and graceful, with an extended beak, broad wings, and thin, dangling legs. But these weren’t the kind you’d see carrying babies on greeting cards.

  At least three times larger than the biggest earthly stork, they soared through the sky like dark omens, propelled by unnatural speed and a craving for blood. Their talons resembled an eagle’s, while their beaks were sharp and strong enough to puncture metal—they could suckle a human dry in three minutes if they found a main artery.

  There was a reason we called them “redbills.”

  “Zach, get to work!” I yelled.

  Gunfire exploded from the helicopter, peppering the birds with artillery. It took more than a single shot to bring them down—even with bullets specifically designed to deliver their death.

  “Spread out!” I ordered my team. “Don’t let them dive!”

  The redbills began to circle the aircraft. The chopper was their greatest source of aggravation, and, judging from the way their beaks angled toward it, they were preparing to strike back. I leapt onto the wheel’s frame and pulled myself up the metal skeleton for a better angle. I fired a round at the largest predator.

  “Focus on the biggest!” I shouted. “But don’t let the others get c
lose enough for a snatch-n-fly.” Rookie mistake of the year.

  My team fired, angry streaks of laser-blue cutting through the darkness. At least ten bullets struck the creature from my team’s direction, in addition to a round fired by one of the chopper’s gunmen. The redbill’s wings beat violently but held its flight. I’d never seen one so large, and with its massive size came extra resilience.

  After another onslaught, it finally floundered, an unearthly shriek ripping from its throat and spurts of dark blood raining from its body. It backed down, swerving shakily toward the water at the end of the pier. It would probably be underwater in moments.

  My team’s focus switched to the next target, a redbill spitting nasty hissing sounds which reminded me uncannily of curses. It darted right up to the aircraft, its powerful beak close to ramming the tail.

  Cursing, I pulled myself higher up the wheel and leaned a little farther out of my comfort zone to get a better shot. I fired, my artillery joining my team’s focused stream. Shots pummeled the bird’s underbelly, but it didn’t falter. It took two intense rounds before it fell away, hissing loudly as it plummeted with a crash into the roof of a snack joint.

  “Good job!” I shouted. “Three more to go!”

  I released three bullets in swift succession at our third target, then leaned out even farther to attempt a shot at its neck. My finger was on the trigger, pressing—

  “Lyra, watch out!”

  Something clamped around my waist. My feet slipped from the frame as an impossible force yanked me to the right like I was a rag doll. The gun flew from my hands and the breath left my lungs—then I was flying.

  The pier bled rapidly away beneath me, and a mass of shimmering dark water replaced the ground. My eyes stung. I couldn’t hear my breathing over the roar of the wind.

  I winced as I felt the cold, painful press of armor against my flesh, as if it were closing in on me, and glanced down. Two blood-speckled claws engulfed my waist, the giant talons squeezing tight.