I, on the other hand, wanted to speak or do something, but nothing came to mind. The ghoul that Brendel had tormented was alive, but its once-translucent skin was charred and crusty. It didn't move, but I could see its chest swelling with each ragged breath.
Perhaps the most important part of this picture was that Brendel was no more.
After everything she'd put us through, I'd finally gotten to her. The ground was no longer shaking. The night sky was clearing up. The winds had stopped raging. It was as if the entire battle had been canceled, now that the leader of the enemy forces had been killed.
Thieron was still humming softly in my hand. Whatever sentient force ran through it, I figured it was overjoyed at paying Brendel back for her thievery.
"What will you do now, brothers?" Kabbah shouted at the other Hermessi. "You've seen what the boy can do. Will you stand in his way?"
One of the Water Hermessi burned brighter and bluer than the others, as if summoning our attention to him. "It's too late," he said. "The ritual is about to unravel. Our job here is done."
"Huh?" I mumbled. Was it over that quickly for the Hermessi?
Without another word, they moved back and took flight, shifting into colorful fireballs as they zoomed away and vanished into the night sky. All of a sudden, there was silence on the battered mountain peak, and we were baffled.
"We still have to find Death," Eira said to me. "Brendel is gone, but the ritual is a mechanism of its own. We all knew that the moment we first crossed paths with her."
"That being said, well done, Tae!" Raphael exclaimed, beaming at me.
"Yeah, we were all getting tired of that maniac," Amelia added.
I pointed a finger at her. "Maybe next time try something less suicidal. You could've gotten yourself killed."
"You needed help. I helped," Amelia ended the conversation right there. Raphael opened his mouth to object, but she shot him a cold stare, and he abandoned the idea altogether, settling for a kiss on her forehead, instead, which she welcomed with a smile.
"So, would anyone mind explaining what a horde of ghouls is doing here?" I asked.
Kelara nodded at the burnt ghoul. "That's Herbert. I believe his name will ring a bell to most of you."
"Oh, damn." Riza gasped, her eyes wide as she rushed to the creature's side. "Is he… Is he okay?"
Herbert whispered something, but none of us could understand him.
"He'll recover, eventually," Kelara said, translating his ghoulish speak. "He can still move and fight. All the ghouls are here to help us," she added, then quickly proceeded to explain how she and the Reaper twins found the Time Master, along with the conditions of his captivity.
"So we have a Time Master, but without the ability to… you know, master time," Lumi concluded bitterly.
"I need my scythe," Time said. "Spirit will have it."
"And we need a bunch of ghouls to keep his specters at bay. All right." I sighed. "It could be much worse."
"It already is," Seeley replied, showing us the pebble he'd found up here, with Death's markings on it. Her breadcrumb. "We're literally running out of time."
"Reports are coming in from the other Reapers," Kelara confirmed. "Only a few fae remain to fall under the Hermessi's influence. The people are panicking. GASP officers left for The Shade."
We knew about the last part. We just hadn’t been ready for its consequences. There was bound to be mayhem without us there, on every single planet of the federation, trying to keep some form of control over the situation. Despair had struck, and the people were likely losing their minds, faced with complete annihilation.
My heart throbbed angrily as I looked at Seeley. "How do we find Death? You've got that thing she left. What do we do now?"
"We use a tracking spell," the Time Master interjected, his voice remarkably calm. "Your swamp witch can blend it into an interplanetary travel bubble. Kelara said you've done it before."
We had, indeed. But would it be fast enough?
"We're on our last legs here. What if we get there too late?" Nethissis asked, having trouble standing on both legs. She'd gotten herself injured, and it would be a while before she'd be back to full strength.
Herbert managed to get himself back up, his burnt skin crunching as he moved. I could only hope it didn't feel as painful as it sounded. A low growl slipped from his throat as he looked at Kelara.
"Are you serious?" she asked him. "Well, yes, technically that's how it would work, but would any of them be willing to do it?"
The ghoul clicked his fangs and whispered something else, prompting Kelara to look at me and Lumi. She seemed doubtful.
"What is he saying?"
"Herbert here has been doing his homework on a wide array of things, it seems. Including swamp witchcraft," Kelara replied. "He says your witches can use ghouls to power up the interplanetary spell. They are essentially souls, albeit decayed ones. Raw energy that can be used instead of serium batteries, which you obviously lack for a potentially long interplanetary trip. He says you need lightning speed if you're to get to Death before it's too late."
"Oh," Lumi said, both eyebrows arched in surprise. "So how much more speed are we talking about here?"
Kelara sighed. "A lot. There's at least a dozen ghouls who've already consented to this."
"It will destroy them," Lumi said. "Actual souls used as fuel for a swamp witch spell… It's intense. Destructive. Nothing like using a serium battery."
"They're willing to do it. After all the specters they've eaten just to help us get to Time, they know Death will have some harsh punishments to share," Kelara replied. "Granted, most are hopeful it won't end that way for them, but, you know, desperate times, yadda, yadda."
Seeley showed the pebble to Time. "Do you know what this says?"
"No," the Time Master said, shaking his head. "I don't think she left it behind as a message, but rather as a means to track her."
"Death's actions are never random. These words mean something," Seeley insisted. "I remember some of the language, but it's ancient stuff. I need time to figure it out, and it's time I don't have."
The Time Master took the pebble and turned it over several times. "Lumi needs it to power up the hybrid spell's target," he said. "I'll keep the words in mind, though, and see if I can help."
He handed the pebble over to Lumi, who was already drawing up the interplanetary spell pentagram, using the last of our swamp witch magic paraphernalia. Nethissis helped, limping as she positioned the herbs and minerals in all their assigned spots across the design.
"How are you feeling, brother?" Widow asked the Time Master, while the rest of us got our bearings and prepared for what could very well be our last journey across space, the clock ticking incessantly in the back of my head like a sour reminder.
"Humiliated. Infuriated. Afraid," Time replied. "The Spirit Bender got incredibly far with his scheme, and none of us took his bitterness toward Death seriously. I fear we are all responsible for this sequence of events."
"That's nonsense!" Soul blurted. "First of all, Phantom, Widow, and I were too busy existing inside Thieron to have had any involvement in the matter—"
"Hey! Not a good start!" Dream warned him.
Soul chuckled and moved his attention back to Time. "Second, Spirit is a scheming and duplicitous lowlife, okay? He fooled everyone, including Death. He's had a lot of time to cook up the perfect plan. He observed everything, down to the last detail, before he took any kind of action. You couldn't have possibly predicted he'd do something so utterly stupid and disgusting."
"In a sense, he's been our true enemy from the very beginning. Brendel was just a weapon he used," I said.
Lumi glanced at Kelara. "The spell is ready. We need the volunteer ghouls to take their positions." Looking at the rest of us, she nodded. "It's time."
It was a weird situation we'd gotten ourselves into. On the cusp of the ritual's finale, the Hermessi were no longer a threat to our mission, probably thinking we'd never
make it in time to stop them. The thought horrified me. And yet, I'd managed to find a silver lining in this unexpected alliance with the ghouls. Most of us had never even seen one before this whole Hermessi debacle.
We moved inside the interplanetary spell's central circle. All of us, including the Reapers. Herbert whispered something to Kelara, then growled at the ghouls to join us. To my surprise, the creatures managed to thin themselves into mere wisps, defying the laws of physics. The five ghouls that had already settled in certain points of the spell's drawing were at full size, though, and I could tell from the grim looks on their faces that they were genuinely scared about what would come next.
"Kelara, perhaps you could put them to sleep, at least," Lumi said. "The ghouls don't need to be awake for their sacrifice, and I have no such power over the dead, myself."
Kelara agreed and spoke to the ghouls on Lumi's behalf. Four of them nodded, allowing her to put them to sleep. The fifth, however, a big and burly specimen with unnaturally long arms, shook his head, his whispery language sending shivers down my spine.
"He says he'll look his ending in the face. It cannot be worse than the agony he's experienced for the past two hundred years since he abandoned his Reaper post and became… well, this," Kelara replied.
I understood then that not all ghouls were alike. Many were primal and cruel, yes, and they'd made notable enemies against GASP's founders before. Not this particular batch, but still, most of the ones here looked as murdery as the ones Derek and Sofia had dealt with. But some, like Herbert, did not like their condition. While a few had learned to live with it, others were perfectly fine with dying in this war, either by battle, by Reaper execution, or by sacrificing themselves as energy sources for our travel spell.
Things were not black and white for the ghouls, just as they were not black and white for the Reapers. Life, in all its forms and dimensions, was a multitude of gray shades through which we all had to navigate.
In order to do that, though, we needed to find the Spirit Bender and Death. The former had to be stopped, no matter the cost, and the latter was to be released, so there would be life left beyond today.
Amelia
The spell bubble was enormous, compared to the ones we'd traveled in before. We had a small army of ghouls with us, and, despite the goosebumps their presence gave me, I also carried a sense of relief with me. There weren't many things that could hurt an old Reaper like the Spirit Bender—not to mention his specters. We were bound to run into both in our quest to save Death. Summoning Reapers was understandably a time-consuming and difficult task, so the ghouls had come in at the right time.
I suspected the universe itself might've played a hand in this. I'd always considered it to be an entity of its own, too big and cosmic to bother with life on an individual level, too bogged down in primordial rules to intervene directly. But strings could still be pulled, and pieces knocked over across the chessboard, enough to set things in motion and bring us closer to our objective.
Of course, this was no guarantee we'd win. There were only a few fae left for the Hermessi to influence. Hopefully, the tracking magic would lead us to the right place, and the swamp witches would use all the power they had to move our spell bubble beyond the speed of light.
Our crew sat on the faux floor at the front, with a full view of space as it opened up before us. Trillions of stars and planets were sprinkled across the endless, black canvas. Asteroid fields and streams of colorful stardust. Swirling galaxies and rogue comets.
Behind us, the Reapers stood next to each other, fearlessly gazing ahead. The ghouls were clearly not accustomed to this method of travel, fidgeting and murmuring among themselves with nervous twitches. There was no turning back now, though. We were already halfway across the Earthly Dimension, with no idea where Death's pebble was taking us.
I leaned against Raphael's shoulder, thankful to still have him with me. For a while, no one said anything. There wasn't much left to speak about. We were headed toward the lion's den, in a sense, and we had no idea what would be waiting for us.
Herbert was in pretty bad shape, but he was determined to see this through to the end. Varga, now back at full strength and holding Eva in his arms for comfort, couldn't take his eyes off the ghoul.
"What's up?" I asked him.
"I wonder what he's thinking," Varga said. "This can't have been easy for him. He's taking this whole crew of ghouls he's gathered straight back to Death. I mean, she's not like us. She might not care about their good deeds, especially if they're balanced against their previous actions—including their decision to abandon Reaperhood and eat souls for a living."
"Maybe he's tired. Maybe they're all tired and hoping there's a better way," I replied. "Look at us. We're out here, going out of our way to find a better end for ourselves. We're driven by something deep within us, this idea that how things are is not how they're supposed to be."
Herbert looked at Varga and whispered something, prompting the sentry to gasp. "Holy hell! I can understand him!" he blurted.
"Of course you can understand him." Seeley chuckled. "You're a sentry. A byproduct of ghouls. Didn't Harper's experience teach you anything?"
"Oh," Varga said, still listening to Herbert. "Right."
"Right what?" I asked, somewhat confused.
"Herbert says he can make himself understood to sentries like Harper or myself if he chooses to. Earlier, he didn't even pay attention to me. He didn't immediately realize I'm a sentry."
"And now he's speaking to you in his common tongue, which you're capable of understanding," I concluded.
Varga smiled. "Yeah, pretty much. He says you're right about something better being out there. He's functioning on hope. They all are."
Kelara had discreetly mentioned Herbert's doubts about all the ghouls making it out of this endeavor in one piece, especially upon facing Death. He'd told them what he'd known would make them cooperate. It wasn't most sincere of him, but I could certainly appreciate why he'd decided to lie to the other ghouls and give them false hope.
Whichever way this ended for them didn't really matter. Doing the right thing, however, was crucial to the old and battered ghoul leader.
"There's something wrong," Nethissis said, her hands glowing amber.
Lumi seemed to agree. "The spell is trying to take us across dimensions. Death isn't in this one."
"And we have a problem because?" Taeral asked, unable to hide the alarm in his voice.
"The interplanetary spell was not designed to do that," Lumi explained. "Even if I were to drain all the ghouls in here for their power, it still wouldn't be enough to pierce such a hole through the fabric of the universe."
The Soul Crusher frowned. "We can leave the spell and make our way across, but we certainly can't take any of you with us, I'm afraid."
"Would Thieron be able to help?" Taeral replied, looking at the scythe in his hand.
Phantom shook her head. "Not unless you're Death. The powers it gave us are no longer available because we're not bound to its pieces anymore. Killing a Hermessi was an incredible feat, but you certainly don't have the knowledge or the skill to get us into whatever dimension the tracking spell is taking us to."
Panic soon gripped us all, and we gave each other worried looks. What would we do? How would we do it? There was no time for a plan B, even if we did come up with one. We had maybe a few hours left on the clock, at best.
Most of the day had already passed, and we'd spent it searching for Death.
"This can't be it," the Widow Maker grumbled. "I did not come all the way here to have my ass handed to me by the Spirit Bender. No way."
Silence took over for a few moments as each of us tried to adjust to this unexpected and unfair new reality. Widow was right. We hadn’t made it this far to get bogged down in the basic laws of quantum physics. We'd broken barriers before. There had to be a way for us to break another one before it was too late.
Lumi lit up from the inside, sucking in a ragged brea
th as she lost herself. Her eyes burned white and brighter than ever, and pure, untamed energy rippled out from her body like a trembling, shimmering aura.
Before any of us could say anything, Nethissis transformed in a similar fashion, taken over and hijacked by what I dared to assume to be the Word. Nothing else had that kind of power over the witches. Nothing else could change them like this…
"What is going on?" Riza murmured, her eyes wide.
"All rules have been suspended." The Word spoke simultaneously through both Lumi and Nethissis. "Given the Spirit Bender's wrongdoings and actions against one of us, I now see fit to intervene."
"Whoa." Varga gasped. "Wait, one of us… What do you mean by one of us?"
"The forces of the universe," Taeral said. "We learned this earlier, back on Mortis, when we first met Death. There are a few of them. The Word, Death, and others, though I don't know anything about them."
"The Spirit Bender took my sister," the Word replied, using Lumi and Nethissis's voices in a way that made my blood run cold and my heart jump in my chest. "I cannot stand for that."
Blinking rapidly, I tried to make sense of this. The old me would've wondered why the Word had not stepped in earlier, when we'd first learned of the Spirit Bender's deeds, but I'd grown up since that previous version of myself. I knew now not to question the universe or the entities that animated it, forces older than time itself. They reasoned and did things in their own way. Our minds were simply too small and were unable to comprehend all the variables, the factors that formed the bigger picture. For us, the bigger picture had been, at most, saving a galaxy or an entire dimension from one evil thing or another. For something like the Word, the bigger picture meant something else entirely. Something greater than all of us put together and multiplied by a billion.
A Shade of Vampire 77: A Fate of Time Page 15