“Oh no,” Dream murmured, realizing what had happened. “Spirit cut him.”
“Nightmare, Phantom… you have to do something,” Morning replied, growing more alarmed as she paced along the circle line. She was tempted to step through but hesitated as she contemplated the repercussions. She moved back and forth a couple of times, frustratingly undecided. Well, at least Thayen couldn’t die. We were playing a terrible waiting game while Unending was off to free Death. I worried she might return to find a bloody mess if she didn’t hurry.
Everyone else watched helplessly as Nightmare and Phantom exchanged glances and entered the circle. The Time Master turned around to face them with a tormented look on his face.
“Come on!” Spirit snarled. “Make yourself useful, brother!”
Time raised his scythe, and my heart stopped. “Wait, I thought the circle limited all your Reaper abilities! Time’s, too, not just Spirit’s. What’s going on?”
“Spirit must’ve used an alternative spell to force Time into submission. Something that bypassed the circle’s restrictions,” Dream murmured, horrified.
“Okay, and Time? What makes him dangerous now?” I asked.
“He’s not able to manipulate time, but he’s still knowledgeable about death magic curses. I suppose he knows a couple more sub-words than the rest of us, too. Not as many as Spirit but enough to make him lethal.” Dream sighed, her brow furrowed as she glanced at her own scythe. I wasn’t sure what she was thinking, but I hoped someone would come up with a solution quickly.
The Time Master whispered into his blade as Nightmare and Phantom launched shimmering pulses at him. He grunted as he blocked their attacks, then shot back power balls of his own—vivid green fires that nearly swallowed the Reapers whole.
About twenty feet to the left, Spirit engaged Widow and Night in another fight, moving so fast that I worried he might beat them after all. The last thing we needed was another Reaper falling under his control curse. Had I been in their shoes, I would’ve taken a lot more time designing spells like these. Then again, they’d never thought they would have to use death magic against one of their own. This entire situation was an abysmal anomaly. Most of their work had always been directed at ghouls and rogue spirits—not each other.
“Tristan, try to get close to Thayen,” Esme urged me. Kalon had an arm around her waist, holding her back from doing something reckless, like coming into the circle to help me. Esme was human now, too, and thus much more vulnerable. I didn’t want anything to happen to her.
Hunter and Kailani stood nearby, joined by Lumi and Sidyan, Seeley and Nethissis, and Maya and Rudolph. The rest of our crew gathered around the red circle, quietly watching the battle unfold. The harder the Reapers went after one another, the more difficult it became to follow them. They vanished and reappeared in different spots in the circle, trying to get the best of their opponent. Every blow Time tried to deliver came with a pained grunt—he didn’t want to do this, but he didn’t have a choice.
Spirit, on the other hand, was descending into madness. Slipping past Widow and Night once more, he disappeared just as I’d managed to drag myself closer to Thayen. My heart broke for the kid. The horror that must’ve gripped his little heart. The fear in his veins… Spirit’s snicker startled me, quickly followed by a boot pressing down on my neck. “Maybe I can kill you, instead,” he said.
“Unending probably put a charm on him, too!” Phantom replied, then dodged Time’s scythe. She wasn’t quick enough to avoid the second blow. The blade cut through her, and she cried out, a black wound splitting her side. In an instant, she was on her knees, the wound spreading and turning her Reaper flesh to charcoal dust. Night tried to get to her, but Time was determined to finish him off, too.
Seeley and Sidyan quickly joined the fight against the controlled Reaper, while Morning slipped past them and settled by Phantom’s side. She tried to help, but I wasn’t sure she knew how. “Does anyone know what curse this is?!” she asked, her voice strained by a mixture of terror and uncertainty. No one had an answer, and that just made things worse. Poor Phantom stilled, taking deep breaths as Morning helped her lie down in hopes of slowing the curse’s progression. Soon, half of her upper body had become dust, and it seemed to keep spreading.
Spirit chuckled as he caught Widow unprepared—Phantom’s condition must’ve thrown him off his game. The double-edged blade cut through him, as Spirit’s lips moved. Widow collapsed, unable to move, his weapon landing on the ground with a terrifying clang.
“By the way, your lady’s loose,” Spirit hissed as he shifted his focus to Soul next.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
It made Spirit grin coldly. “Kelara. Your little pet. I don’t know how she found us on that mountain, but she didn’t make it back to this snazzy red circle of yours. She’s riddled with ghoulish hunger and out there on her own somewhere.”
The bastard must’ve overheard my quick exchange with Phantom and Dream earlier. He was using Kelara to throw the Soul Crusher off his game, and to my dismay, it was working. Spirit came at him harder, delivering one crippling blow after another, until Soul missed a beat, and the double-edged blade sliced open his thigh.
Seeley moved away from the fight with Time in order to take on Spirit instead. Nethissis tried to enter the circle to help, but both Rudolph and Maya pushed her back, while Seeley shouted at her, “Don’t! You’re just a soul! He’ll destroy you!”
“I will destroy you all!” Spirit growled, as both Soul and Widow shot upward, suddenly animated by the same controlling curse he’d used on the Time Master. It manifested differently with each of them, but the end result was the same. Spirit now had three First Tenners under his control while another was gradually disintegrating. The others were in over their heads.
I could finally see why they’d all been so wary of him from the beginning. The Spirit Bender wasn’t just versed in the complex arts of death magic and armed with infinitely more knowledge than the rest of the Reapers put together, but he was also remarkably fast and agile with his use of basic Reaper reflexes and abilities. His Death-given gift may have been blocked by the red circle, but everything else seemed to function perfectly.
Ridan, still in dragon form, was getting restless, and Amane tried to settle him. “He can’t leave the circle,” she said.
“But he’s picking them off one by one!” Amal replied, shaken to the core. “And there’s nothing we can do about it…”
In that respect, Amal was absolutely right. Maybe Thayen and I were protected for now, but our Reaper defenses were failing, even turning against us in some cases. If Spirit was right, and the Unkillable charms that Unending had put on us would fade, then it was only a matter of time before the kid and I would be done for.
I’d gone up and down on the emotional scale over the past couple of hours, but this particular situation was pushing me to new limits. The worst part was that Thayen had absolutely no say in any of it. He was still paralyzed by Spirit’s spell, which was no way to leave this world. When I looked up again, Seeley narrowly dodged Spirit’s blade, and Sidyan had been cut down by Time, who’d now set his sights on Morning.
Dream cursed under her breath and ordered Rudolph to go in with her while the remaining ghouls growled and bared their fangs outside the red circle. Maya stayed with an increasingly concerned Nethissis, who couldn’t take her eyes off Seeley. This was going from bad to worse, and our window to salvation was shrinking.
Spirit kicked Seeley in the chest, violently throwing him back. I heard Nethissis gasp, but Spirit’s sneer worried me more. He turned to Soul, who shook under his forceful influence. “Break the circle!”
The gravity of what was about to happen sank in as the others stepped back. Soul gritted his teeth but obeyed, walking over to the glowing red line. He brought his scythe down with a tormented growl, and the circle was broken.
Spirit glanced my way. “Since I can’t reach you or that little smudge, I’m going t
o kill everyone you love instead!”
Everything happened so fast that no one had time to react. Spirit put his foot down, causing a tremor to spread out and make the entire city shake. The earthquake amplified, throwing everyone to the ground. Even the dragons wobbled as they made their way toward him. I doubted they could do anything to stop him. In fact, I worried Spirit was about to keep his promise and kill everyone. Seeley, Sidyan, Dream, and Rudolph were the only ones still standing. Time, Soul, and Widow were frozen under Spirit’s influence. Morning and Phantom were both down and gradually turning to black dust.
The remaining ghouls moved closer, setting their sights on Spirit, who basically laughed in their faces. “This is what you people keep forgetting! I cannot be stopped! I cannot be held down for long! I have worked too hard and too long to let you spoil everything!” He raised his scythe in the air, its blade illuminated in a troubling shade of red. “Finalis finum finium!”
“Stop!” Seeley shouted, but it was too late.
A blinding red light exploded from Spirit’s scythe. It spread out fast, swallowing everything in its path. People screamed. Sofia cried out, but her sobs were quickly muffled. Derek gasped. Somewhere in the distance, the Trakkians broke into a stampede, likely trying to get away from the red light.
I held Thayen close, trying to shield him with my broken body as best as I could. For an entire minute, I listened to the sounds of death as it consumed everything in its path. I knew what it was. I didn’t need to be versed in the art of death magic to understand what Spirit had just done. He’d always had this power at his fingertips, and he’d likely used it as leverage before, but now all bets were off, and he was lashing out with everything he had.
Nothing mattered. Spirit had been defeated, and he was taking everyone down with him. My eyes stung, tears rolling down my cheeks as I braced myself for what he’d left behind, as a terrible silence settled across Roano. Not a single step could be heard. Not one voice. Nothing. It reminded me of the nothingness deep inside Unending’s subconscious, but I knew this was much worse.
“Esme…” I whispered, finally finding the courage to open my eyes. I broke down crying as soon as I saw her. As soon as I witnessed the aftermath of the Spirit Bender’s spell.
Tristan
“No…” Kelara’s gruff voice broke through.
I didn’t even see her. I had no idea when she’d returned. None of this mattered anymore. Esme was dead, on her back, her eyes wide open as they looked up at the sun. I could see its sparkling reflection in her gaze. Kalon was beside her, lifeless, one hand resting on her stomach. Derek and Sofia were gone, too. They’d died looking at each other.
Thayen whimpered in my arms while I tried to cope with what I was seeing. Lumi and Kailani were the odd ones out, having turned into glowing white statues. Hunter was dead, and so were Rose and Caleb. Amal and Amane, too. Trev. Ben and River.
“Ah…” I cried, my soul shattering into pieces as I took it all in. The Perfects and the Arch-Perfects. The Visentis boys. The Orvisians. The Trakkians. The dragons were down, too, scaled giants with glassy eyes. Douma. Dmitri. Corrine and Ibrahim. Every single living creature within Spirit’s spell radius had been murdered in one swift blow.
Nethissis screamed so loud, it pierced the blue sky itself and made me quiver. Seeley and Sidyan were speechless. Morning and Phantom could barely even move at this point. Dream’s galaxy eyes glistened with what looked like tears as she looked around. Everyone was gone. Only Thayen and I remained, courtesy of the Unkillable charms. It made me wish he’d killed me too, if only to spare me from seeing this.
I crawled over to Esme and managed to slip my arms around her, holding her close as I shuddered, my heart crumbling. “Esme… please…” I sobbed, lips pressed against her cold ear. “Sister, please… don’t do this to me…”
The Spirit Bender exhaled sharply, slowly putting his scythe down. I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn’t care anymore. Death wasn’t here. Unending wasn’t here. I wasn’t sure what was happening. The only thing I knew with absolute certainty was that my sister was dead. My friends. Our allies. Tens of thousands of innocent people.
“You monster!” Nethissis shrieked, rushing toward Spirit. Maya managed to trip her and stop her from getting closer, whining and hissing as she tried to make Nethissis understand that approaching Spirit would end poorly. “You killed them all! How could you do that?!”
“I guess you could say you left me no choice,” Spirit replied, clearing his throat and brushing imaginary dust off his shoulder. “That’s what happens when people like you insist on getting in my way.”
The Reapers still standing were too stunned and horrified to even react, not that I could blame them. What Spirit had done was beyond belief. And Death had given him the knowledge to do this. Death. Fury took the place of grief. It was all I had left, and it burned through me like an unstoppable fire, coursing through my veins and setting my brain aflame. From the bottom of my lungs, I shouted to the heavens. “DEATH!”
“You’re pathetic,” Spirit muttered, giving me a pitying sneer. He looked around and made sure he included everyone else still in existence. “You’re all pathetic.”
“DEATH!” I roared once more, my skin prickling as I put everything I had left into it.
“If you’re thinking she’ll come and save everyone, it’s not going to work,” Spirit said. That was enough to get my attention, and the third cry got stuck in my throat.
“What… what do you mean?” Nethissis asked, her lower lip quivering.
“Finalis Finum Finium is a permanent spell,” Spirit explained, struggling to contain his giddiness. Bile rose from the pit of my stomach. It took everything I had not to retch. “Their souls have been stripped from their bodies and tossed into the afterlife. Consider it an express reaping en masse. I’ve used it before when an asteroid was about to hit a small planet in the Supernatural Dimension. Death had wanted me to let the disaster take its natural course, but I couldn’t bring myself to let those people suffer. She’d taught me the words, but she’d asked that I refrain from using them, which, to be honest, I found to be an insane request.”
He paused, taking a moment to look at Thayen, his gaze fixed on the boy’s chest. I figured he was waiting for the Unkillable charm to expire; then he’d finish what he’d started. I wanted to get back to Thayen, but I couldn’t bring myself to let go of Esme.
“You see, Death wanted all those people to suffer. Have you ever experienced an asteroid hitting your planet? No, you haven’t. You have no idea how it kills. Your world just shatters. The ground beneath your feet vanishes. I mean, if you’re close to the impact point, maybe you go fast into the next world. It’s so violent, it literally wipes you out. But if you’re farther away, you get to die slowly in the aftermath,” Spirit continued. “Toxic fumes, tectonic plates shifting, volcanoes erupting until the sky is covered in soot and death and you can’t breathe anymore. Or you die of starvation. Or drown. There are a million ways to die after a massive rock smashes into your planet. And Death wanted those people to experience it all. You know, she stationed me there, expecting me to stick around for weeks on end to pluck their souls and send them into the afterlife. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bring myself to be so heartless and cruel.”
“That’s rich coming from you,” Sidyan spat.
Spirit pointed his scythe at him, angered by the remark. “Don’t you dare! You have no idea what I saw! What I had to do because Death ordered it! That wasn’t even my first time reaping after an asteroid. The universe was incredibly brutal in those early days. But a few civilizations had managed to develop despite the adversities. I thought of them as rare and precious flowers. I had more respect for life than Death, I’ll tell you that much. So when she asked me to do another asteroid and post-asteroid reaping, I said yes… but I did things my way. I used this final spell. It sucked everything out of me. I couldn’t cast magic for years afterward, but it was worth it!” He smiled. “It was worth it
because over a million people died without feeling a thing and went straight into the beyond. That planet was destroyed, but no one had to suffer.”
“You… you sent everyone here into the afterlife,” I mumbled, still grappling with the concept. “My sister… everyone…”
“I did. For what it’s worth, they’re all actually better off,” Spirit replied dryly. “They don’t have to live in a world where rules are dictated by Death anymore. They belong to another realm now.”
Seeley scoffed, a muscle ticking in his jaw. “You’re an asshole, Spirit. Whether Death is good or bad, cruel or merciful… it doesn’t matter. She’s an integral part of the universe, and you can’t change that. We don’t have to like her. We don’t even have to agree with her. It’s beyond our control. What you just did was pure and mindless spite. It is unforgivable. Unnatural.”
“Well, it’s done,” Spirit said.
“Where is she?” I murmured, wishing Death would just appear and fix everything. But how could she? If Spirit was telling the truth, then our people—my sister—they couldn’t be brought back. They’d already been reaped.
This new reality didn’t make sense. I didn’t know how to cope. This was not how I’d thought this would end. The Spirit Bender walked over to Thayen, snapping his fingers. The boy was freed, and the only thing he could do was cry. Hopeless little soul…
“You’ll pay for this,” Nethissis managed, still held back by Maya.
“Maybe. But at least I’ve made my statement. You all know how awful Death really is. Maybe that’ll teach you some common sense for the days to come,” Spirit replied.
A low feminine voice echoed through Roano, turning my spine into a block of ice. “Spirit. What did you do?”
She appeared before us with flowing long black hair and stars in her eyes. Lips as red as blood and skin like mother-of-pearl. Her white silk dress danced in the breeze, the ocean murmuring somewhere to the west, beyond the city’s border. Death had come to Roano. And she held Thieron in her hand.
A Shade of Vampire 86: A Break of Seals Page 18