A Shade of Vampire 87: A Shade of Mystery

by Forrest, Bella

  A loud thud followed. Astra said something. Richard squealed from what sounded like pain, but I couldn’t see him. There was a struggle happening. I’d landed on top of Isabelle, every bone in my body aching as if broken, and I couldn’t find any strength left in me to move. Footsteps sounded nearby. Our people were rushing to reach us.

  “No…” Viola murmured.

  I managed to look up, only to see Richard’s doppelganger jumping into the shimmering slit. He’d gotten away. A millisecond later, it vanished, and the air felt clean and light again. Only my body remained heavy as if pinned down by a massive anvil. “Astra…” I mumbled, turning my head slowly. Pain shot through my neck with the movement.

  There she was… running toward me. Richard was with her, smoke wafting from his silvery-black coat. They were okay. Astra must’ve cast a fiery spell to catch the doppelganger, and it must’ve caught Richard, too. Yes, there had definitely been a struggle involving the three. That had led to some chaos and some singed fur…

  “Hold on,” Draven said, carefully peeling me off an unconscious Isabelle.

  Serena and Kailani pulled her away, and Viola was quick to put another pair of charmed cuffs on her before she woke up. Serena cradled Isabelle’s head in her lap, bursting into tears as she caressed her daughter’s face, while Kailani and Viola checked the girl from head to toe, making sure she hadn’t sustained any severe injuries.

  “Are you okay, Thayen?” Draven asked, his gray eyes fixed on my face.

  I barely nodded. “I think so. Everything hurts…”

  Mom and Dad reached me quickly, each of them checking my arms and legs, then my torso and my head for any wounds. I saw a smile flutter across Mom’s lips, and a wave of relief washed over me, gold and sweet and cooling. “He’s okay,” she said to Dad. “He’s going to be okay.”

  “Stay strong, chief,” Dad told me, gently ruffling my hair. “You’re going to be sore for a little while. You took quite the tumble.”

  “But he caught Isabelle,” Astra chimed in, kneeling beside me. “I’d say it was worth it.”

  “I feel like a train rammed right through me,” I grunted as Dad helped me up and Draven gave me a small vial with a dark purple liquid to drink.

  “It’ll take some of the pain away,” the Druid said, and I trusted him.

  Sipping slowly, I found that it had a surprisingly pleasant taste—a mixture of dried berries and… mint. I swallowed and allowed myself a moment to regain full clarity.

  Isabelle was secured, and her mother had covered her naked body with her jacket. She was unconscious, but at least she was still here. Richard’s doppelganger had jumped into the shimmering gash, which confirmed it had to be some kind of portal.

  “I’d like to say that it all makes sense now, but I’m not sure that’s true,” Kailani muttered, circling the spot where we’d all seen the slit. “How does a portal appear and disappear with me being so close and still unable to sense it?”

  “Most importantly, I think, is where does it lead?” Astra replied, settled by my side.

  Richard nuzzled my face and slobbered on me with a wet wolf snuggle—his way of telling me he was happy to see I was okay. “Glad to see you’re still in one piece too, buddy,” I told him.

  Astra had posed a good question.

  We knew just a tiny bit more than we had five minutes ago, but it wasn’t enough. We also had to address the issue of Astra’s suspicions regarding Isabelle. Clearly, we needed to approach this problem from an entirely different angle. This wasn’t even close to over, and I had no intention of stopping, especially now that Draven’s cure had begun to work its way through my body.

  Re-invigorated, I gave Isabelle another glance. She had all the answers, whether we liked it or not. We just needed to find a way to get them out of her, since my glamoring hadn’t worked.

  Tristan

  We spent about an hour talking to Mar-El about Anunit. Despite them being intimately close for more than a century, he didn’t seem to know any useful details about the Reaper. His description matched what we had seen in the tower memory—rich blond hair, piercing blue eyes, iridescent skin that appeared to have been spun from diamond dust. Unending mentioned that Anunit’s appearance was different from any other Reaper she’d met.

  “It’s not the physical features that make her really stand out, however,” Unending said. “There are plenty of blond-haired, blue-eyed Reapers in our realm, after all. And there are incubi Reapers in Eritopia with shimmering or silvery skin. No, there is something else about her that makes her… unique.”

  “She’s truly out of this world, isn’t she?” Mar-El replied, stretching his long, bony legs as he relaxed in his chaise lounge. Evening had settled over the desert quickly, the black sky now freckled with stars. A giant moon glowed just above the house. We couldn’t see it, but the dim light it cast illuminated enough of the desert for us to follow the dune contours in the distant horizon.

  “Otherworldly, yes,” Unending said, slowly leaning back against me. We’d been sharing a lounger that gave us a clear view of the world beyond Mar-El’s terrace. He wore a dreamy expression whenever he thought of Anunit. A warm smile brightened his face when he uttered her name. Even after so many years, Mar-El remained deeply in love with her. But it was Unending’s choice of words that caught my attention.

  “Otherworldly?” I asked her.

  “It’s hard to put my finger on it. I’ll have to meet her to fully comprehend what it is about her that… I don’t know, unsettles me,” she said, but not out loud. Unending could speak telepathically when she wished. “When is she coming over?” she asked Mar-El.

  “At midnight,” he replied. “She comes to Rothko at midnight.”

  I looked at him. “Every month, you said. Every full moon.”

  “Yes. She comes to the Red River Mountain first. It’s her favorite place in this world. She likes to sit there for a while before coming here,” Mar-El explained.

  “How is it that she only visits once every full moon?” Unending asked. “Because of the bounty on her head? I suppose Death would still want her caught, especially since she can’t get to Anunit on her own.”

  “That is exactly why,” Mar-El replied. “She bounces from one place to another every month, then takes every full moon to come see me. Our love is strong, and I accept the situation. It’s better to see Anunit rarely than never.”

  Unending thought about it for a moment. “Has she ever told you why she’s being hunted?”

  “She can give the Reapers back their lives,” he said, suddenly solemn. “Death obviously doesn’t want that to happen, so she desires to see Anunit destroyed. I suppose Death never expected my beloved to develop such an extraordinary ability…”

  “Yeah, Death has a history of making certain kinds of Reapers without fully considering the repercussions,” Unending muttered. This was deeply personal to her, and it was easy to understand why. “It just irks me that Death wants Anunit destroyed. She spared me. She claims to love all her children equally.”

  “But you’re not a threat to Death’s empire,” I said. “Anunit could easily revert the fates of every Reaper who wants a second shot at life. It could significantly shrink Death’s army and resources if Anunit were free to do whatever she wants. I’m not saying that Death’s approach is good or right, because it’s not. But I can certainly see where she’s coming from.”

  Unending nodded faintly, accepting my thoughts on the matter. She looked to Mar-El again. “How did you and Anunit meet?”

  He lit up once more, remembering perhaps the precise moment in which he laid eyes upon Anunit for the first time. I wondered if I made a similar face whenever I thought of that fateful day when I met Unending—back when she was still trapped under the beautiful guise of Valaine Crimson. “She came out of nowhere,” Mar-El said. “I was still living in the city then, a royal advisor to the king. Anunit emerged from thin air, beautiful as the morning sun and just as bright. She told me who she was, and she a
sked to stay with me. I could never understand why, but when a creature like her decided that I was the most important person in her life … how could I say no to that?”

  “So, she just came up to you?” Unending asked, frowning slightly. She didn’t seem to like his story. “Anunit simply showed up…”

  “Yes. She told me she’d been watching me for days. That she’d taken refuge on Rothko because there weren’t many Reapers around, so she could stay out of their sight more easily.”

  Even I found that to be an odd statement. “Why wouldn’t she have sought an uninhabited planet? Her chances of bumping into Reapers would’ve been minimal to none.”

  “I never asked. Like I said, Anunit had chosen me. I didn’t dare question that,” Mar-El said. “For the following year or so, we were inseparable. She stayed hidden from the Aruni, living with me in my private quarters in the castle. I was careful not to be seen talking to her, since people would have assumed I’d lost my mind. They couldn’t see her. We were happy. She showed me her world. Her magic. She showed me wandering spirits in the haunted forest of Bazildur—I’d often heard them as a child, wailing and screaming—Anunit helped me see the entities that had troubled me whenever my father sent me out to gather firewood.”

  “Ah, you are sensitive to spirits,” Unending said. Something had clicked in her head. Two seemingly unmatched puzzle pieces had fallen into place. “She chose you because you are receptive.”

  “I don’t know why she chose me,” Mar-El replied. “I asked many times, but Anunit only told me that I was special. She never gave me the details about why or how.”

  Unending leaned closer to Mar-El, staring at the side of his head. “Could you pull your hair back a little? Perhaps tuck it behind your ear?”

  The old man did as she asked, running a hand through his white hair before tucking it behind his rounded ear. Only then did I spot the tiny symbol tattooed onto his skin just beneath the lobe.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Oh, the sign? Anunit gave it to me. She said it would protect me. That her energy wouldn’t imprint on me, thus keeping the hunter Reapers away,” Mar-El said.

  Unending gave me a worried look, followed by a slight shake of the head. The symbol wasn’t what Anunit had claimed. She took a deep breath as she got up from the chaise. I quickly joined her. “We’d best take our leave now,” she said, then bowed politely before Mar-El. “Thank you for your hospitality and conversation, sir. You have been most kind.”

  “It’s been my pleasure. Any friend of Anunit’s is a friend of mine.”

  We were still lying about that, and I now understood why it had been better to play along and let this Aruni man assume incorrectly. Anunit had done something to him through that tattoo, and I was sure Unending would explain it to me—but she clearly didn’t want Mar-El to know. I wondered why. Was she protecting him somehow?

  “You said she goes to the Red River Mountain first,” Unending replied.

  “Yes. And later, she comes here to see me,” Mar-El replied.

  We left Mar-El in his villa and made our way to the edge of the oasis. It was quiet at this hour, as most of the Aruni living here had gone to sleep. Cricket-like insects chirped in the lush bushes that skirted around the tall fruit trees. The moon cast its light over the turquoise water, giving it a phosphorescent glow that drew my attention for the better part of a minute. It was absolutely stunning, like watching gemstones melting in a giant pot.

  “What’s the tattoo about?” I asked Unending after a while. “You recognized it.”

  “It’s an entrapment sigil,” Unending replied. “It’s meant to keep the soul in that body. Obscure death magic at work there. The kind only the Spirit Bender and I knew about. It’s based on the word for immortality, though it’s merely a microscopic fraction of my ability. Consider it a forgery of sorts, an attempt to jump through a loophole. The symbol basically stops Mar-El from dying. It stops the separation of the body and soul.”

  “What does that mean for Mar-El?”

  “It means that even if you kill him, his soul will still inhabit his body. The flesh will die, of course. It will decompose and fall apart, but the spirit won’t be able to leave it.”

  The thought made me sick to my stomach. “That’s awful. Why would Anunit do this to him?”

  “We’ll only know if we ask her,” she said. “But I’m willing to bet it’s got something to do with his sensitivity to spirits. She can tell us more."

  “And why didn’t you tell Mar-El about it, then? Wouldn’t he want to know the truth?”

  Unending shook her head. “I can’t break the sigil myself. Only Death or Anunit herself can do that. It was such a cruel thing for Anunit to do… I would have told him if I had the ability to free him from it, but otherwise there’s no point. He’s better off not knowing, trust me. He’d be horrified. He might become depressed. It could potentially destroy his psyche. I’m not willing to be responsible for that.”

  “Why don’t we tell Death about him, then? She can help Mar-El,” I said.

  She pressed her palms on my chest, and I pulled her closer, instinctively reacting to her magnetic presence. “We’ll tell Death once we finish our work with Anunit. She won’t even want to hear about it sooner. Until I bring Anunit to her, she doesn’t care about anyone else. Nothing will happen if Mar-El stays this way until then.”

  I nodded gently. “Okay… I know how important this is to you. If we pull it off, I can take the vampire cure. We can have a baby.” I lowered my head. Our lips met, and our hearts, one beating and the other not, sang in perfect unison as if the entire universe had rearranged itself to facilitate our union. The feelings between us had only intensified over the years, bringing us even closer to one another.

  Our souls were united, and our goals were the same.

  I dared, for a moment only, to escape reality as I deepened the kiss. I pictured myself with a mortal Unending as she cradled a perfectly round bump. I imagined us in the nursery, our baby wrapped in soft cotton, the tiniest miracle in my beloved’s arms. I could see myself kissing the top of his head, tufts of dark hair tickling my nose. Yes, I wanted this more than anything. I wanted us to have our family, and with how determined Unending was, I knew we’d eventually get it.

  “Will you become a Reaper again once your physical body dies?”

  Unending shrugged. “Probably. My spirit is designed for Reaperhood, unlike the others. All the First Tenners are designed for this. If Anunit gives bodies to regular Reapers, their chances of becoming Reapers again after they die are no longer the same. There are aspects of the selection process that Death never shared with us.”

  “So, this is why she wants us to track Anunit down,” I said, remembering Death’s initial arguments. “She can’t punish the Reapers that were given new lives.”

  “Yes. As long as Anunit is free, she’ll keep helping the Reapers who hear of her, who ask for her assistance. This is why Death is so determined to capture her. She needs to eliminate the problem at the source.”

  “And you’re okay with this. With betraying Anunit after she helps us,” I said.

  “I said yes to Death but… I’d like to get to know Anunit better before we reach a decision. I’d like to at least hear her side of the story. Her crimes are clear and punishable, but we’ve all done bad things to a certain degree but with good intentions. I don’t want to judge Anunit based solely on what Death told us about her. Does that seem fair to you?”

  “I think so. Maybe. Though I certainly understand where Death is coming from. Besides, if you don’t keep your side of the deal, won’t she punish you?” I replied.

  Unending put on a dry smile. “What is Death going to do to me that Spirit hasn’t already done? Torture me? I’ve lived in foreign flesh for five million years, Tristan. Unable to settle, unable to flee or free myself because I was trapped in a foreign body. There’s nothing worse than that.”

  “If we have a child out of this entire adventure, they’
ll be vulnerable,” I reminded her, and her bitter humor faded altogether. She’d not considered that scenario in full, probably because we were still operating on the basis of assumptions regarding whether Anunit could do something or not.

  “You’re right,” she sighed. “Then I will do what it takes to protect our family. If that means surrendering Anunit, then so be it. But even so, I do want to hear what she has to say about herself. One doesn’t go around granting illegal wishes for frustrated Reapers just for kicks or out of the goodness of one’s heart. We definitely need to talk to her about this, ideally without losing our shot at a family.”

  Unending’s soul matrix had been specifically created for the role of a Reaper. Yet she wanted to live, to experience things that most souls had already been through. I understood her desire, and I felt even more determined to help her make it happen. For that, we needed Anunit, but the endeavor came with questions and risks of its own.

  How much death magic did Anunit know, and what was she using it for? Why had she sealed Mar-El’s spirit in his body? Most importantly, would Anunit be willing to help us? We had no choice but to head over to Red River Mountain and hope she’d tell us herself. Finding her felt like an auspicious sign, and I was determined to pay attention to every detail around me.

  The night sky sparkled above us. The glowing turquoise water lapped lazily at the sandy edges. The wind blew softly, warm and dry and hopeful. It was as if the planet itself was reacting to our most hidden desires. I knew it wasn’t real. I knew it was just in my head, but I welcomed the feeling nonetheless. We needed all the encouragement we could get, considering the strange and perhaps perilous journey ahead of us.

  Nothing had ever come easy to us. I doubted having a child would be any different.