Something swished and crackled to my left. Brendel!
She'd come around the fire I'd set. My element of surprise was gone, but I kept Thieron in front of me, knowing she wouldn't deliberately plunge herself into it.
Brendel darted to my left, mimicking my initial strategy. I ducked when she cast her fire at me. The ground trembled even more, to the point where I had trouble keeping my balance. Fear crept into my throat.
I caught glimpses of the others fighting. Varga was down. Eva, too. Nethissis was unconscious. Suddenly, the energy vibe I'd felt earlier began to dwindle, my resolve deflating a little too fast. Several Earth Hermessi had their hands sunk into the ground—I'd found the earthquake's source. Someone had to stop them. But I had Brendel to deal with.
"You're not going to win this!" I snapped.
Fire curled around my ankle and knocked me off my feet. My back hit the ground hard. The air got forced out of my lungs. Brendel came up, towering above me. Her fiery arms reached out like laser beams. She caught my left wrist, scorching my skin. I cried out from the pain, and, in a moment of desperation, threw Thieron in a bid to stop her from burning through my right wrist, as well.
The scythe flew through her side, and white light flashed inside her for a long moment. The earth shook violently, cracks opening up and splicing through the mountain peak. I'd left a hole through Brendel's side, and her fire figure turned pale blue for a moment, flickering with unease and confusion.
I had a chance to take her out for good, but Thieron was on the ground, about twenty yards away from me. I'd missed the crucial shot, and now, Brendel's white eyes were fixed on me. The stone cracked under me, and I sank into the ground.
Eira's scream tore through the stormy night sky. Someone cursed.
And I was left wondering how I'd pull this off, as Brendel made her way toward me. It wasn't death I feared, for I could not be killed. It was failure, inching closer against the ticking clock.
Kelara
For several hours, we'd been fighting and reaping our way through an ever-growing crowd of modified souls—I'd settled on that term because it was the only one I'd deemed accurate enough for these ghosts. "Specter" didn't even begin to cover it.
The Spirit Bender had tweaked them with bits of Reaper mojo, most likely threads of clothing and other fragments embedded into the spirits. With this modification, the ghosts we'd been dealing with could hurt us, they could fight back, and they could make everything worse.
My arms hurt from all the swinging I'd done, cutting down every ghost that came at me. Contrary to popular opinion, Reapers could still experience exhaustion, albeit rarely—this was one such instance, where the volume of hostile souls was simply unprecedented. My scythe buzzed, tickling my skin and glowing in angry shades of red. I had a feeling even its blade recognized the abnormality of this situation as it sliced through the specters. Perhaps this was its way of showing anger. I'd never thought of my weapon as a mere object, anyway.
Dream and Nightmare had nothing to consume from the dead. Their powers only worked on the living, unfortunately. But their scythes, identical and huge in their design, were more than suitable for the task at hand.
The problem was that we'd been at this for a long time, and the spirits kept coming.
"This is insane!" I shouted. "Where do they all keep coming from?!"
"We must've triggered some kind of alarm set by Spirit," Dream said, and proceeded to reap a couple more specters as she worked her way through the crowd.
Nightmare was right next to her. "He's gone to a lot of trouble to make this happen," he added, in between slashes of his scythe. The spirits dissipated in flurries of white-and-yellow sparks, vanishing into the ether as they finally got their chance to move on. "This didn't happen overnight. He's been sowing the seeds for a very long time!"
One ghost rammed into my side, its teeth sinking into my hip. I cried out, the pain burning through my whole body. As a Reaper, I was basically a spirit myself, so I wasn't supposed to feel any of this. I drove my scythe into his neck with a grunt, forcing him to disintegrate and forget his tortured existence altogether.
"He knew one or more of us would come looking eventually, didn't he?" I said.
"It makes sense!" Dream replied. "I mean, how long did he think he could pull this off without someone noticing that Brendel had Reaper aid?"
"And not just any Reaper aid. High-class, First-Ten support!" Nightmare snapped.
Cursing under my breath, I kept fighting. At least these weren't superior fighters, but mindless specters who just wanted to bite and scratch and kick at everyone in their path.
But we were wasting precious moments here, instead of looking for the Time Master. If anyone could help us and Taeral's crew get our edge back, it was him.
"Can you still feel him?" I asked the twins.
"Time? Yeah, he's here. And he's close!" Nightmare replied. "That's the worst part, because I need these ghoulish sons of bitches to get the hell off me so I can do my damn job!"
It would only get slower and harder from here.
The specters kept coming, and I had no time to think of alternatives. I'd tried spells, but none had been designed for mass reaping. Death had always been an individual experience, and it applied to the Reaper, as well. I visited the person whose time would soon be up. I waited patiently for them to die. Then, I spoke to them, soothed and prepared them for their next step, which was out of my reach and field of knowledge, too. That was it. Simple, but deeply personal and significant.
What we were doing here was rather crude and rushed, but it obviously had to be done.
"Is this like an endless stream of specters?!" Dream managed.
Nightmare whispered a spell into his scythe and swung it outward with a hiss. A powerful wind erupted from the blade and threw some of the specters back, enough for Dream to start reaping them, one by one, before he joined in.
"He must've been around when the asteroid hit," I said, springing for a theory that could explain this mass of souls he'd had handy for such a trap.
"What about the other Reapers?" Nightmare asked. "Surely, more of them would've been summoned."
I was suddenly confused. "Wait. You said you were here! You met with some of the other First Tenners!"
"Yeah, before the asteroid hit! We weren't here on a mission. We didn't see the thing come down, and we certainly weren't present for the reaping part!" Nightmare blurted.
"Jeez… You could've been more specific," I muttered.
"It must've happened not long after we left, though," Dream said. "The impact, I mean."
"Okay, so how do so many people die and no Reaper but the friggin' Spirit Bender shows up?" I asked. "I am horribly confused here!"
"We don't know!" Dream replied. "He probably made a request to one of the higher circle Reapers—we’re not presiding over them anymore, remember? But Spirit Bender still worked among the Reapers, as one of them, not as a superior. We might be the first made, but that doesn’t mean we can do whatever the heck we want—the freedom Death gave us does not give us any authority over the Reaper systems. It’s why Spirit settled for a lower position in the first place. So, he had to have made a request."
"To cover an entire planet in case of a disaster?" I said.
Nightmare took out a few more specters and shot me a grin, while I worked my way through a bunch of my own. "Honey, we're First Tenners. We're strong enough to reap an entire planet by ourselves. It just takes a bit of time to talk to all of them at once and make them understand that it's time to move on. Once they get that key fact, they just surrender. Most of them, anyway."
"Can't we do that here?" I asked.
"Do any of them seem willing to talk?" Dream retorted.
I groaned. "Point taken."
The crowd closed in on us again, prompting Nightmare to do another wind spell to push them back. We got to reaping once more, while angst wormed its way through my chest and into my stomach. We had to find a faster way to finish thi
s!
As far as the eye could see, there were specters. Hundreds of thousands of them now, like an endless stream of anguish and misery and agony.
A growl erupted from afar. It was not alone. Beasts roared from our left, still hundreds of feet away from us. Were those specters trying out new battle sounds?
Something glimmered in the distance. I followed it with my gaze for a while, until it came into focus. A ghoul.
"What the…" My voice trailed off as I realized it wasn't alone.
No, there were dozens of them, hurtling toward the crowd of specters. They galloped through the air at first, gradually descending onto the crowd.
Nightmare gasped, hearing the growls as well. "You've got to be kidding."
The ghouls rammed into the sea of specters, their massive fangs tearing through their spirits, forcing them to fall apart into billions of sparks. Many they ate up as they advanced.
The specters around us stopped, frozen by what I could only describe as dread. They'd heard ghouls before. They knew what they were and what they could do. Suddenly, the crowd split into dozens of threads, each going in a different direction.
"Hah, turns out they fear ghouls more than they fear us. How… insulting," Dream said, watching the horror unfold.
The ghouls worked their way toward us, chomping down on all the souls they could catch along the way. They were big and gray, with skin that was near-transparent and big, dark, sunken eyes. Their claws tore through the specters before they ate them whole. I felt sorry for them… They were forever lost, never to move on, but, truth be told, this was definitely a faster way to resolve our time-pressing issues.
One of the ghouls stood out—not because of his size or agility, for they were all fearsome and exquisite hunters. No, he stood out because he whispered commands to his brethren, pointing in various directions across the scattered crowd, and they listened.
"I've never seen something like this before," I murmured, unable to take my eyes off him. His lanky finger pointed at me next, and I did not like it. His eyes found mine, and I wasn't sure what to make of this.
"They're organized," Dream said, matter-of-factly.
"I take it you've seen this before?" I asked her.
She and Nightmare nodded. "Not that big a pack, though. I must admit, I'm impressed."
"Also, why is their leader pointing and looking at me?" I replied.
Nightmare chuckled. "Well, you are quite easy on the eyes."
"Brother, don't be an ass," Dream scolded him.
To our surprise, the specters moved away from us as the ghouls got closer. The Reapers-turned-monsters ate everything in their path, without discrimination or control. It prompted the three of us to move closer together and point our scythes at them, as a means to warn them not to try anything stupid.
The ghoul who'd been eyeing me reached us first, though, leaving the others to keep feeding on specters. Finally, I could breathe. My arm felt sore. All that swinging had worn me out, it seemed. I might've been stuck between the world of the living and that of the dead, but I still had sensations in my form. I could still suffer or wear out, though not as quickly as in my human life.
"Don't take another step," I warned the ghoul. My voice didn't sound certain, and I wasn't sure why. I could still take him and his whole crew before they could so much as poke a hole through my smart suit.
The fiend straightened his back, his long, lanky fingers wiggling at his sides. "I'm not here to do you harm. None of us are," he said, his voice clear as daylight in my head.
Ghouls could no longer communicate by using their mouths, but they still had telepathic abilities. I'd seen them communicating with sentries in a similar fashion, so being able to hear and understand him wasn't exactly a surprise.
"I take it you came here for the buffet? Who tipped you off?" Nightmare asked him.
The ghoul sneered at the First Tenners. "You two are not my favorite people. I'd rather speak to Kelara here."
"You know me?" I replied, rather perplexed.
"I've served the living for a long time. Not of my own free will, at first, but they sort of grew on me," the ghoul said. "Word has spread about your endeavors, and I had my own share of brushes with the Hermessi not that long ago. I've come to help you."
Dream and Nightmare raised eyebrows at each other, looking downright insulted.
"I'm sorry, what did we do to offend you, ghoul?" Dream shot back.
Around us, few specters remained. The ghouls drove them away, the others long gone by now.
"My name is Herbert. And I am no fan of the First Ten. Most have done nothing but harm to the world of the living. I heard about you all recently. The tales of your involvement with the people… It is shameful."
"Hah! Says the dude who decayed into a bleepin' monster because he ate souls!" Nightmare laughed. "That's rich!"
"I made one poor choice and spent the rest of my existence paying the price. I doubt the same can be said about you," Herbert retorted.
"Wait… Herbert. I know that name. I've heard of you," I said, remembering conversations between Kailani and the other GASP members, back in the sanctuary. Herbert had been enslaved by the witches a long time ago.
"Yes. I was Ibrahim's," he said. "I've been free since I helped Harper's soul reunite with her body. But I haven’t been able to walk away from this war with the Hermessi. They're a threat to our food chain, as well."
"So you want to help because you don't want everyone to die and get reaped, thus leaving you without wandering souls to feed on? How noble of you." Dream chuckled. “I mean, in case of mass deaths like the ritual, there will be extra care for such a high number of souls. Chances are you wouldn’t find any scraps.”
Herbert shook his head. "No, that's just what I told the others to get them to help. They won't like me very much later, but I trust you'll keep that to yourselves for the time being."
"What are you talking about?" I asked.
"Death will return, eventually. Whether it's before or after the Hermessi's ritual is completed, that is entirely up to Taeral and his allies," Herbert explained. "I'm merely looking to be here when she does come back, and I want her to see that I've done my best to help the living. I hope to gain some kind of favor with her, because she will certainly go after the ghouls once she has Thieron back in her grip."
I couldn't help but smile. "You're helping now so you can survive later, huh?"
"That's the plan. I'll loop my friends in at some point. Perhaps later. Now that they've fed, they should be easier to reason with," Herbert replied.
"How did you know to come here?" I asked.
The dried-up oasis was empty now, riddled only with the fallen ruins of its once-populated city. Red sand covered everything, dipping into what had been the bottom. Herbert glanced at it, then back at me.
"I've been asking around. You'd be surprised the kind of things that ghouls see, all over this universe and across all its dimensions," he said. "A rumor here, a question there… The Mirinin constellation came up a couple of times. The Spirit Bender's name and his presence here. It didn't take long for me to dig up the right information."
"Why are you here?" Nightmare asked, raising an eyebrow. "It's not like we're Death's favorites right now. Surely you didn't think we might put in a good word for you?"
Herbert sneered at him in a way that made my blood freeze. "I'm here to help you. I knew you were coming here, and I'd heard of what the Spirit Bender had done here. I knew of the specters. Don't fool yourself into thinking you mean anything of importance to me."
Nightmare's scythe hand twitched. I gave him a discreet nudge. "Don't be a jerk. It'll get you farther," I whispered, and smiled at Herbert. "Thank you for the assistance. I admit, you did help clear the area a bit."
"You're looking for the Time Master," he replied.
The three of us were all equally baffled. "He's here," Dream said. "You knew that, as well?"
Herbert shook his head slowly. "Not at first. I put two and t
wo together on my way here, but that doesn't matter. I can smell him."
"Seriously?" Nightmare blurted. "How so?"
"I picked up his trail on Astram, shortly after you left. I may not have your power, but my nose still serves me well."
He walked over to the edge of the dried-up oasis, giving me a brief over-the-shoulder glance.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"He's down there," Herbert said. He padded down into the bowl-shaped hole, his claws sinking into the red sand. He stopped for a moment, sensing something beneath. Stretching his neck, he blew over the crimson dust, forcing it to scatter away and reveal… a dead Reaper. His throat slit. His eyes empty. Much like the ones we'd seen on Mortis.
"The Spirit Bender," Dream murmured, utterly disgusted.
Nightmare stepped forward and whispered another spell into his blade. He waved it around, and the red sand responded to his command, pulling back like a curtain and revealing dozens of Reapers—all murdered by True Death. I could now see where the Spirit Bender had gotten his material for the specters.
Pieces of their clothing were missing, as were their scythes.
"What the…" Nightmare mumbled, equally aghast.
Herbert sniffed between the dead Reapers and through the red sand, until he reached the bottom and started digging through it. Dream, Nightmare, and I watched in awe as he managed to bring out another Reaper. This one didn't seem dead. And I recognized the pocket watch still clipped onto his lapel.
"Is that—" I asked, but Dream beat me to it.
"The Time Master! Holy smokes, you found the Time Master!" she squealed.
We rushed down to join Herbert, and Dream took Time in her arms, carefully checking him from head to toe. His eyes were closed, so she gently pulled his eyelids apart, revealing dark galaxies of ancient origins. He was definitely still with us.
Nightmare kneeled next to him and Dream, his trembling fingers touching Time's face. "I can't believe it… He's here…"
"Herbert, I have to admit, I'm amazed," I said, giving the ghoul a warm and honest smile. "We needed a win. Thank you."
A Shade of Vampire 77: A Fate of Time Page 12