“Taeral, either,” I said. “Why? Do you know something?”
“Our telescopes spotted some activity on a mountaintop about a thousand miles northeast of here,” Amelia replied. She showed me stills from the telescope recordings. A ridge crossed the tablet screen. On the left side, there was a body in the snow, blood all around it. She zoomed in, and I recognized Valaine, whose head had been cut off. The pain in my heart was so powerful, so sudden, that my knees nearly gave out. I knew she’d died, but seeing her dead body was a whole other level of terrible. Kalon stayed close, eyeing the screen with a mixture of grief and concern. Amelia moved the image a little bit more, and I finally saw Tristan.
He wasn’t alone. Thayen was on his back, his eyes open. Judging by the following stills that Amelia showed us, he was still alive. With the red haze gone from around Visio, our telescopes had full visibility and the capacity to capture some highly detailed zoomed-in shots. In this case, we could see Thayen’s eye movement. He was definitely still kicking and apparently uninjured. “He’s stunned,” Time said, joining the conversation and noticing the differences between images.
“There’s Spirit.” Kalon sighed, pointing at the screen. “And Taeral.”
“When were these taken?” I asked Amelia.
“A few minutes ago,” she said. “They seem to be fighting. I’ve asked Phoenix to send me the recordings, as well. Maybe we can get more insights out of those.”
I looked at Time. “What do we do? If anything happens to Tristan or Thayen or Taeral, we’re all screwed. Spirit will have his full power back, and he’ll be aching for a bloody vengeance on anyone within his reach.”
“Death is the only one who can take Spirit out,” the Reaper replied, but Dream gave him a solid nudge. “What?” he asked her, clearly annoyed.
“Phantom and Soul can do that thing,” Dream muttered, as if not wanting the rest of us to hear her. But we definitely heard her.
“What thing?” I asked.
“Yeah, what thing?” Time seemed just as curious.
“You know. The portal drop,” Dream said. “It only works when the two of them are at it. Maybe use one of the fae or the witches or the jinn to power up the spell and make sure they get it right.”
Clearing my throat, I gave her and Time a sharp scowl. “Hello! What’s this about?”
“It might actually work,” Time replied, then looked at me. “It’s a remote teleportation spell. With the right amount of supernatural energy to fuel it, Soul and Phantom can devise a wormhole of sorts. They can target that specific ridge and open up a portal right where Tristan, Taeral, Thayen, and Spirit are standing.”
“Once the portal is open, they’ll just slip right through back into Roano, whether they like it or not,” Dream added. “It works best with Phantom and Soul because of their particular abilities. They’re both able to bend space. Time can pitch in if they need the extra juice, and maybe Ben or another one of your GASP fae or jinn can provide the spiritual energy. The latter is required for the portal’s accuracy.”
“You want to bring them back here,” I concluded.
“Well, yeah. If Spirit wants a fight, we’ll all give it to him. If he’s outnumbered, if he sees the Trakkians like they are now, it’ll mess with his psyche. The best we can do is slow him down in this controlled environment until Death shows up.”
That sounded better than us teleporting onto a frozen mountain peak. The conditions up there were hostile for the living, and I never would’ve forgiven myself if I didn’t at least try to intervene and help my brother. Besides, the portal’s destination here could be further amended with some death magic sigils that might limit his powers, much like his Darklings had done with Roano.
“He won’t see it coming, huh?” I asked and got a nod from both Time and Dream. That was all I needed to be sold on the idea.
If anyone could accomplish this, despite the Spirit Bender’s dangerously vast knowledge of death magic, it was them. His siblings. Those he’d punished and betrayed in a variety of ways a long time ago. What they lacked in sacred death magic words, they made up for through sheer determination and teamwork.
Tristan
As soon as he gathered what was left of his self-control, Spirit turned his attention to Thayen. “I need my shard,” he said, pointing a finger at the boy. Thayen couldn’t move, still held under the stunning spell. Spirit walked toward him, but Taeral stepped in, blocking his path.
“I told you to stop,” the Fire Star prince replied, raising Thieron between them.
Spirit smirked. Every inch of my body hurt beyond belief, but what truly angered me was my inability to do anything. Unending and I had promised Thayen that he’d be safer coming with us than staying within reach of the Darklings in Roano. Granted, both Derek and Sofia had accepted the risks of the kid coming with us, even knowing we were Spirit’s primary targets, but we’d taken a chance, thinking it was better than to leave the boy behind. Now the decision had come back to haunt me.
“And I told you I’m not done,” Spirit said, bringing his blade up to his lips. A shimmering pulse burst from it, headed straight for Taeral’s head at lightning speed. He blocked it with Thieron, but the blow was powerful enough to push him back several steps.
It wasn’t the last of Spirit’s attacks. He kept at it, while Taeral continued his defense, making sure none of the spells hit Thayen. The two of them fought for what seemed like forever, with both sides determined to see things through to the end. In the meantime, I managed to crawl closer to the kid, looking for a way to get him out of here.
I had no idea what the others were up to. I’d lost my earpiece somewhere along the way, and surely Spirit would have cut off any other form of communication the moment he’d found us atop this mountain. We had no way of getting help, and I wasn’t even sure whether GASP was in a position to assist us with anything, considering the broken third seal and its effects. We’d assumed this could go one of two ways: either the Aeternae stopped their offense altogether, or they raged on and made everything worse. If the latter were to happen, they still had strength in numbers, even with our fleets coming in, and nobody wanted to burn them all alive, thus wiping out their entire species.
“Hold on, Thayen, I’m coming,” I grunted, pulling myself along while ignoring the shooting pain through my legs and ribs. It would take forever to recover from this—provided, of course, I even survived.
Spirit chuckled. “Delusional till the very end, I see.”
I ignored him and continued making my way to Thayen, while Spirit intensified his attacks on Taeral. Something changed in the air around us. I stopped for a moment, trying to ascertain what was coming. The atmosphere became heavy and charged with crackling electricity. The silence that fell over our mountaintop was eerie and persistent, despite the dark clouds still swirling above, which signaled a powerful snowstorm about to unleash.
Taeral gasped, suddenly frozen. Spirit saw it as an opening and went straight for his head but ended up cutting through the air as Taeral disappeared.
“What the…” I murmured, suddenly on my own with a paralyzed Thayen and a revenge-thirsty Spirit. “Oh… no…” Resuming my crawl, I tried to get to the kid in time. I wasn’t sure what I could do to protect him, but if I could at least shield him from the Reaper, all wouldn’t be lost.
“Well, that was unexpected,” Spirit muttered, looking around nervously. He was waiting for Taeral to reappear, likely assuming he’d hidden in order to attack from another angle. But that never happened. It took Spirit about half a minute to realize that he was gone. Completely gone.
I wanted to be angry about this turn of events, but since I had very little to go on, I couldn’t understand what had happened. All I knew was that Thayen needed my protection. Spirit sighed, once again focused on the boy. “Oh well, I guess they decided to make it easier for me,” he said, stalking toward us.
Thayen was finally within my reach. I grabbed him by the lapel and dragged him back. He whimpered under my hold, tears stre
aming down his cheeks. I could see the fear and the horror in his eyes, and I had no way of stopping what would come next. Wrapping my arms around the boy, I swallowed back tears of my own as I braced myself for the end. I rolled us over so I could cover him with my body, while Spirit’s snow-crunching steps came closer.
My breathing was ragged and erratic. My heart was aching.
This was my last chance to say something, to feel something, to experience the sensation of life. I felt Spirit’s blade touching my cheek. The cold metal sent shivers down my back.
“Any last words, my friend?” Spirit asked.
There was definitely something strange going on, and it hadn’t stopped with Taeral’s disappearance. A low rumble emerged from below, and it took me a moment to figure out what it was. An earthquake was coming. My entire body trembled. Thayen gave me a scared look, and I dared to respond with a half-smile.
“I’m not your friend,” I said to Spirit as the rumbling increased.
The ground started shaking, and I looked over my shoulder to see his expression shifting from a confident sneer to a befuddled scowl. He didn’t know what was happening either. As the earthquake amplified, it became harder for him to stand up straight. Having chosen to stay in his physical form, the Spirit Bender was now wobbling as the mountain grumbled from below.
Things took a turn for the weirder as Kelara appeared out of nowhere. Raging furiously, she came at Spirit with everything she had. I didn’t see her scythe, however, and I wondered how she’d found us. How had she made it here without her weapon? Something was different about her, too. Her eyes were almost black, anger burning inside them as she took Spirit on in close combat.
Kelara’s arrival had taken Spirit by surprise. He fought her off but barely got a chance to even swing his scythe at her. She was fast, punching and kicking with incredible speed. She moved like a shadow, bolting left and right, dodging and swerving whenever his blade came too close. All it would take was a single cut to make her his servant forever. “You’re being incredibly stupid right now,” Spirit growled, swinging his scythe around in a bid to catch her.
But Kelara didn’t have any words for the Reaper. She responded only with snarls and grunts—she’d succumbed to the ghoulish hunger. Her physical form was intact, though, so she’d yet to eat a soul. I understood then that she’d allowed herself to descend into this feral side in order to fight Spirit. I had no idea how she’d broken out of the rune collar, but she was determined to see the end of this guy.
The ground shook harder, challenging her and Spirit as they tried to take each other out. Eventually, it became difficult for either of them to focus. No matter where they stepped, they had no stability whatsoever. Kelara shifted into her subtle form and attempted an assault from behind, but Spirit cast a defensive spell that knocked her back. Seconds later, she scrambled up and prepared for another attack, but the land beneath her feet simply slipped, and she dropped to her knee.
“This isn’t right,” Spirit said, alarmed.
The chilling sound of stone breaking made me grab Thayen and roll farther away from Spirit. The greater the distance between us, the better I hoped our chances would be. Maybe this wasn’t my time to die after all. Maybe I’d get to see Unending again before it was my turn to step into the afterlife.
Before I could say anything of comfort to the boy, the earthquake became so violent that I worried the mountain itself would fracture and fall apart. I held him tight as Spirit began whispering into his scythe, likely working on a way to stop whatever was going to happen. Kelara tried to get to him, but she kept stumbling. The more she struggled, the angrier she became. There was a glimmer of recognition plastered over Spirit’s face, along with an obvious sense of apprehension. Something told me he’d seen this before, though perhaps under different circumstances.
A glowing line snaked around us. It cut through the crumbling chunks of ice and snow. It sliced through gray limestone and frozen dirt. Kelara had to jump back to stop it from cutting her. It drew a perfect circle that encompassed Thayen, Spirit, and me. Once the circle was complete, the earthquake suddenly stopped. A swishing sound came through, and everything beneath us vanished. Kelara was left behind.
I heard myself scream as I fell, my arms still tightly wrapped around Thayen. His horror was mine now as we both plummeted helplessly into an abyss not of our own making. To my astonishment, Spirit was falling, too.
Darkness surrounded us for a fraction of a second, then light appeared below.
We landed on a hard surface under the sun. Everything hurt. I groaned, turning over so as to give Thayen a little breathing room. With weak and trembling hands, I reached for my hood, worried I’d be burned by the daylight, until I remembered I was a human again. The sun was no longer my enemy.
“Son of a…” Spirit cursed under his breath, up on one knee already.
I managed to look up and around. We were back in Roano, near the center of the city. Thayen was alive, though clearly in pain and still stunned by death magic. But we weren’t alone anymore. The Reapers stood along a glowing red circle around our landing spot. They must have opened some kind of portal.
Derek and Sofia were here. Some of the surviving ghouls. Ridan in dragon form. The rest of our GASP crew. Some Seniors were still standing, along with Kemi and Mira. Trev, the Visentis boys, and… my sister.
“Esme,” I croaked.
“Tristan!” she cried out, taking a step forward, but Time held her back.
“You know what we have to do,” he said. I didn’t quite follow, but I was relieved to see she was alive and well. A smile even made its way onto my lips as I recognized Ben and River in their GASP uniforms. Douma and Dmitri. Corrine and Ibrahim had made it to Roano, as well, along with a small army of Perfects and Arch-Perfects. There was Heath, also in dragon form, joined by others of his species.
“What is the meaning of this?!” Spirit snapped, his scythe already raised and glowing. He frowned as he sensed something was different about himself. “What the hell did you do?”
“We placed some limits on you,” the Night Bringer replied. About a hundred yards back, the Aeternae—or the Trakkians now—were quiet, their gazes fixed on us. I didn’t know what was going through their minds at this point, but I was glad to see they’d chosen to stop fighting. Finally, they were showing some sense and not forcing our hand into something much worse. They were mortal now, doomed to someday age and die like everybody else. “You’re not going anywhere, brother. Not anymore. Anyone who enters this circle cannot leave until it’s broken.”
Spirit narrowed his eyes as he looked at me. “How’d you get them to help, you little turd?”
“He didn’t,” Soul interjected, stepping forth. “Phantom and I brought you over, with a little bit of assistance from a witch.” I wanted to ask him about Kelara, but the situation we were dealing with was in urgent need of resolution. Spirit gripped his scythe, unbroken by his current predicament.
Corrine shot him a grin. “You’ve been destroyed before, buddy. You’ll be destroyed again.”
“Don’t underestimate the living, especially those who’ve been around the supernatural block a couple of times,” Ibrahim added.
“You put limits on me,” Spirit said, ignoring her completely, though he couldn’t hide his contempt for us. “I know this spell. Brothers, sisters, I regret to inform you that this circle won’t hold me for long.”
“Maybe not. But it’ll help us keep you busy while we wait for Death,” the Widow Maker replied, then stepped into the red circle. “I’ve been wanting to do this for a long time, Spirit. Your ass is toast.”
Spirit seemed uneasy, if only for a moment. Even in the face of certain defeat, he refused to surrender. He wasn’t going down without a fight. And as soon as he bolted toward Thayen and me in one last desperate attempt to get his soul shard back, a few more Reapers jumped in. They were also limited by the red circle, but there were more of them and only one of him.
He’d beaten the odd
s before, but we’d prevailed against his forces once. If anyone had the drive to put this bastard out of his misery for good, it was us.
Taeral
I didn’t even realize I’d been pulled out of the fight until I found myself standing hundreds of thousands of miles away from Visio, suspended in the void of the cosmos. Unending had a hand on my shoulder. She’d been the one to extract me from the mountaintop. She was back in her full form, and by the stars, she was breathtaking. Yes, there was some resemblance to Death, but Unending had her own unique appearance. Significantly taller than her maker’s physical form, she presented herself with an almost regal grace. Scythe glowing in her black-gloved hand, she gave me a soft smile. “Forgive me. I had to get you away from Spirit. Your mission is complete,” Unending said.
“Are you kidding? Tristan is down there. Thayen. He’ll kill them both!” I replied, alarm bells ringing in my head. All I could think about was going back to Visio to stop Spirit.
“There is nothing we can do for them,” Unending said, keeping a straight face. She was serious, and I couldn’t believe it. “I’m back, and there is more work to be done.”
I scoffed, already determined to break from her and help Tristan. She raised a hand to stop me, and I couldn’t control my own emotions anymore. “Dammit, Unending! It’s Tristan we’re talking about! Little Thayen! They’re defenseless before the Spirit Bender. He’ll kill them!”
“The others have come up with a plan. I’ve heard them.” Unending sighed, a twinkle of sadness in her galaxy eyes. “They don’t know I’m still around, but I took a moment to make sure it was all headed in the right direction. Kelara has escaped from her interdimensional pocket where Soul had held her. Moments after I got you off the mountain, she showed up and took over.”
“I can’t believe you…”
“I’m sorry, Taeral. But we cannot stay here any longer. Death needs us.”
“And Tristan doesn’t? He deserves that much, considering what he had to do to free you!” I snapped. “Have you no sympathy?”
A Shade of Vampire 86: A Break of Seals Page 15