Mom nodded slowly. “I do. Who did you have in mind for the team, then?”
“Brandon, Hammer, and me. The Time Master, too. Myst and Thayen, and that’ll make two Purgatory entities who can teleport us across the real island if we have to,” I said, then looked at Mom, already seeing the disappointment carving its way through her expression. “You should stay back here with Dad. I can’t bear the thought of losing you again. Besides, it’s me Hrista wants.”
“And you’re going right to her!” she shot back, shaking her head. “Absolutely not. No, honey, I’m not letting you endanger yourself like that. Your father won’t allow this either!”
“Mom, I’m the only one who can open a shimmering portal. If we do send a recon team through, they have to be able to come back,” I reminded her. “Also, let’s be honest here. I know you’re worried, and I appreciate it… you’re my mom, you’re supposed to worry about me. But I’m a GASP agent, and I cannot in good conscience run and hide from the trouble that has befallen our island. I must do everything within my power to save our home.”
She let out a heavy breath, dropping her gaze for a long moment. It felt like a surrender, though she didn’t say a word. I took a second to hug her, love pouring through us both with golden warmth, like the kiss of a burning sun.
“I know you’re all grown up and independent,” Mom whispered in my ear, “but that doesn’t stop me from worrying about you. Astra, I give you my blessing to do whatever it takes to get everybody back home, but by the stars, come back to us, honey. Otherwise, you’ll break your father’s heart beyond repair. Not to mention mine. I doubt I would survive losing you.”
“I love you too, Mom,” I replied, holding back tears. I blinked several times, then pulled away and looked to the others. “We’d like to take the dragons, too. Dafne and Jericho. You were both instrumental before, and the real Shade needs you.”
Jericho and Dafne exchanged glances, and only then did I notice it. The subtle shift, the familiarity in their eyes. They shared something different, something more intimate. It was subtle and brief, but I liked it. Dafne gave me a stern nod. “You can count on us,” she said. “I get Jericho’s fire is useful for Myst’s light weapons, but I’m not sure how any of my abilities will come into play over there.”
“You’re a fierce fighter,” I replied, smiling. “You helped saved us more than once. I trust you to fight alongside us, and you know the Berserkers and the clones as well as any of us here.”
Thayen nodded his agreement. “That will definitely matter later. Okay, so we’ve got the two dragons, and we’ve already got Time as the Reaper to join the mix.”
“Really?” Richard muttered, frowning like a sullen little boy. “You just skim right past me, huh? Your bestie? Your partner in crime? Your brother from another mother?”
Voss chuckled and gave Richard a nudge that threw him down almost instantly. Voss wobbled, too, but Chantal helped him stand, laughing lightly, while Isabelle held back her giggles and helped Richard up.
“We’re too weak, cuz,” Voss said, giving Richard a sympathetic smile. “If I can knock you down just like that, it means your reflexes aren’t sharp enough yet to withstand a recon mission in what is now basically enemy territory.”
“I don’t want to stay here and feel useless. I wasn’t made to decorate the world. I was made to protect it,” Richard retorted with a dash of the overly dramatic.
“Which is why we need you to stay here with us,” Mom interjected. “We do alright on our own, but we’re stronger with you by our side, Richard.”
Richard was momentarily baffled, struggling with anxiety, disappointment, but also flattery. My mom did have a way of bending him and most other incubi to her will—Safira had often said it was a trait of the Daughters. “Incubi whisperers,” she’d called us. Well, my mom and the Daughters, actually. I’d been under the incubus’s influence before. That was probably due to my not being a full Daughter but half-sentry—at least that had been Mom’s theory, and Safira had not contradicted her. Either way, I was glad the Daughters were immune and at least one of them ready to nudge the wolf-incubus in the right direction.
“I’m inclined to accept your arguments,” Richard ultimately replied, keeping his chin up, proud as ever. Thayen patted him on the shoulder.
“You’re needed here, Rich. Besides, your parents have just gotten you back. You can’t leave them behind again.”
“What about us?” Regine asked, both eyebrows raised. “You seem to have your team worked out, you even desire a Reaper to assist you, but there was no mention of me or Haldor anywhere.”
“Regine, it’s not—” Myst cut in, but her sister wouldn’t have any of it.
“What, you’re going to tell me I’m needed here, too? Like I’m as gullible as Richard?”
“Hey,” Richard mumbled, slightly offended.
The Time Master walked onto the beach, accompanied by his ghoul, a tall slender thing named Aphis. Unlike most of his kind, Aphis carried himself mostly on his hind legs, preferring to come across as more Reaper, less ghoul. He barely ever made a sound, and whenever I looked into the black pools of his eyes, I could almost feel the coldness of his existence. A string of decisions had led him to this point, but most had not been his choice. The Time Master had rescued Aphis from the Knight Ghoul ranks of Visio. “A Valkyrie and a Berserker should stick around here to help protect the Shadians,” Time said, joining the conversation. “Hrista can still return or send some of her people through to torment or hurt them. While my fellow Reapers are capable of fighting them off, I’m concerned a Berserker might still inflict considerable damage and maybe even loss of life.”
Regine gave him a startled look. “You think she would do that? Hrista, I mean.”
“Don’t you?” Time replied, mildly irritated. “She has spent years building this place and finetuning the clones to replace real Shadians. She clearly hates everything The Shade stands for. We know why that is, too. We helped in the Spirit Bender’s destruction. She took over and threw everyone out in return. Of course, I have no trouble seeing her choosing to send her people through just to torment the originals. Hrista is filled with rage. Calculated rage, but rage nonetheless. Surely, you can see that.”
Haldor cursed under his breath, the fires in his eyes burning white. “The Reaper’s right. Hrista is vicious. I thought my brothers and I were capable of horrible things, considering our nature, but Hrista… She’s been working at this for a very long time. Now that I think about it, yeah, I see it too. The possibility that she might send clones or Berserkers through just to mess with the real Shadians.”
“What we’re doing is recon anyway,” I said. “I would never engage her with just a handful of people. But we absolutely have to see what she’s planning, how The Shade is faring… we have to know what we’ll be walking into.”
“Besides, Voss, Chantal, Isabelle, Richard, and I have already dealt with the clones,” Mom replied, looking at Regine and Haldor. “We can offer valuable insights and help our Shadians be better prepared in case there is a clone infiltration.”
“You’ll have Soul, Kelara, Sidyan, Seeley, and Nethissis, too,” Time added.
“So, I get to stay back again?” Soph interjected, crossing her arms. I had mixed feelings about her coming along—we were already taking a huge risk with Dafne, Jericho and Richard against the clones, the hostile Berserkers and Hrista. I just wasn’t comfortable putting the heiress to Neraka in mortal danger, too. She was more than capable, of course, yet my stomach weighed a ton as I thought about her joining the mission.
Fortunately, Myst was quick to give her a better option. “You need to help keep my sister in check,” she said.
“Excuse me?” Regine croaked, almost offended, but Myst ignored her, focusing on a rather befuddled Soph.
“This will be a recon team. The fewer of us, the better,” she added. “I promise you I would be the first to ask you to come along otherwise, but my sister grows restless without me,
and I’m sure your parents will feel slightly more comfortable with their only heir staying back once more, at least until we figure out what happened with The Shade.”
Soph shook her head slowly. “This doesn’t have anything to do with Regine. You just want to keep me out of it.” She gave me a sullen look, and it just made me feel worse. I sought Thayen’s gaze for comfort, but he seemed equally awkward.
“Myst is right,” Regine conceded with a heavy sigh. “I could use you as back up in case something goes off. We can coordinate. You and I, we’ve already had our share of action, if you think about it.” Only then did I realize how the younger Regine had chosen to be the mature one in this conversation. She certainly didn’t need a living babysitter, but she understood why Soph would’ve felt left behind, too. By playing along with Myst’s argument, Regine was choosing the middle path of unification, leaving our crew small while strengthening the Shadians’ defenses in our absence.
But even with Soph by her side, it didn’t make Regine much happier about having to stay back, especially since she had to work with Haldor. If there was one thing that she’d made abundantly clear since day one, it was that she and the Berserker loathed each other. “You’d better not be a pain in my ass,” she muttered, crossing her arms as she looked away from him.
“I won’t, if you promise to keep that word-salad maker of yours shut,” Haldor replied dryly.
Regine gave him a troubled look. “Word-salad maker?”
“He means your mouth,” Richard laughed. That earned him a deadly scowl from two Valkyries instead of just one, and I had to press my lips tight enough to prevent a chuckle from escaping.
“You know what? I think I’ll be fine to stick around,” Soph cut in, narrowing her eyes at Haldor. While he’d been a veritable nightmare as our enemy, he didn’t scare her anymore. “I’ll look forward to mopping the floor with you if you’re not nicer to your light sisters.”
It made both Regine and Haldor laugh, albeit for different reasons, but I was simply relieved that Soph would stick with the rest of the Shadian family. Had it been after me, I would’ve kept the team even smaller for everybody’s safety, though I couldn’t hold everybody back—case in point, Richard had made it into the crew this time.
“All jokes aside, Astra is on point with this whole endeavor, though, and sticking with a small crew. It’s safer for now,” Isabelle conceded. “In the meantime, I’ll keep working on my memory gaps. Maybe I can recall something useful. But we have to send a recon team through. Like you said, we have to get a good understanding of what our island looks like before we can try to take it back.”
Thayen exhaled sharply before bringing up the one problem none of us had truly considered. “Astra managed to convince her mom about this. She’s got Phoenix left to get on board, and we each have a set of parents to convince. I suggest we head back and start getting our affairs in order. We have no idea how this will turn out.”
I doubted any of them would hold us back on this endeavor. They wouldn’t. We were fighting for The Shade here, and I knew our parents would offer their support. The problem was that they might offer too much support. The team we’d agreed upon was small but effective. I knew from Brandon that Derek and Sofia would’ve liked to send more people with us, just to be safe—there were times when emotions got the better of people, overriding even the GASP protocols. Emphasis on “would’ve liked,” though, since they’d already been convinced otherwise by Brandon.
This whole situation was different from what they’d dealt with before, and a million times stranger. We lacked precious information because Isabelle had trouble remembering. I could only imagine how frustrating that had to be for her. Now, after two whole months as their prisoner, she was finally awake and conscious, but her memory loss had persisted. For now, we only had what we’d learned for ourselves, and it wasn’t enough to take down Hrista. I briefly looked to Brandon again.
As always, I found a feeling of trust and courage in him. He would be with us every step of the way. And that emboldened me beyond my own strength. Yes, I’d learned to open a shimmering portal and hold it open for a minute or two. It was enough to get a few of us out of here, but it was just the first step in what I believed would be a long, complicated journey back to our beloved island.
Thayen
“There are plenty of senior agents who could take your place.”
Phoenix’s suggestion was understandable coming from him as a father, but it wasn’t realistic, either. Astra let out a small sigh as she gave her father a warm smile. We were already equipped for the mission, having thought it might help the parents adjust to our decision faster. Suddenly I felt hot and uncomfortable with my mom and dad watching me—quietly, but with clear intent.
“Yes, but they lack our experience with Purgatory entities,” Astra told her father.
Viola placed a hand on Phoenix’s shoulder. “Honey, she has to go, no matter who is on the recon team. She’s the only one who can open shimmering portals. Besides, our children have grown a lot in the days that they were away from us. I’d hardly consider them junior agents after what they’ve endured in this place.”
“That’s true,” Phoenix replied, reluctantly accepting his wife’s judgment.
“You’ve already made up your minds, haven’t you?” Lethe replied, a bitter smile persisting on his lips as he looked at Dafne, then at the rest of our crew. One by one, we felt the chill of the ice dragon’s gaze, along with the silent promise of the bad things that would happen if we didn’t come back with Dafne alive and in one piece. I couldn’t blame him.
Dafne hugged her mother, Elodie, then stepped over to her father, taking his hands in hers. “You know we’re right about this,” she said. “We’re the best equipped to spy on those freaks, Dad. We’ve dealt with them before. We’ve learned to use some of their tricks, too. Besides, we work well as a team. It’s how we survived here before the Flip.”
“It is not our intention to fight the clones, the Berserkers or Hrista, but to gather information and help GASP prepare for a proper counter-offensive,” the Time Master added. Behind him, Aphis stood dark and silent, his eyes measuring us from head to toe, as if he was becoming acquainted with his new teammates. I had never crossed paths with the ghoul before, as Time had usually chosen to show up on his own, leaving Aphis in a subtle form. “Right now, we don’t know what’s going on in The Shade or whether the rest of the federation is aware of what has happened.”
Blaze scoffed. “So you’re just going over there for a quick visit.”
“Yes!” Jericho replied, genuinely exasperated. Of every parent we’d had to convince, Blaze and Caia had been the ones with the hardest heads. Mom and Dad had come around relatively quickly, but the fire dragon and fae couple was being downright stubborn.
“And Myst needs you because of your fire power,” Caia muttered, visibly dissatisfied at the prospect of her son going away once more. “This is wrong on so many levels.”
“Not really,” Phoenix replied, his arms crossed and his mind made up. “It’s the price we must pay as Shadians and fighters of GASP. As supernaturals, really. Our families, our parents, our children and probably our grandchildren, too. We have no choice but to jump in and go to battle for those who need us. We did it once or twice ourselves, and it made our parents sick with worry. I figure it’s only natural that we be put through the same thing now. We can’t ask our children to step back when an injustice is committed, simply because we love them too much to lose them.”
His words struck a chord in all of the parents present. Dad hid his smile, while Mom fought back tears. In the end, he spoke the truth, and his words achieved the unanimous greenlight that my crew and I had been hoping for. We would’ve gone either way, but it felt much better to have the support of our parents and loved ones prior to embarking on this new and dangerous adventure.
Silence settled over the group for a good minute as the truth permeated every other concern the Shadians might have had regardin
g this expedition. It was obvious that this had to be done. Could it have been assigned to more senior GASP agents? Sure. The Shade was full of them, and I had faith in their abilities. But none had interacted with the clones, the Berserkers, or Hrista like we had. If anyone had the experience and necessary knowledge of the enemy, it was us.
“Well, you’re already packed up,” Lethe conceded, nodding at his daughter. She and Jericho had small bags attached with stainless-steel rings. In these bags, they had a minute amount of invisibility magic, red garnet lenses, and healing paraphernalia in case they needed it. Should the dragons turn, the bags would remain attached through the stainless-steel rings to their collars. Yes, Dafne and Jericho were absolutely packed up and ready to go.
“We have to support them,” Elodie told her husband. “It’s our duty.”
“It is, yes,” Blaze sighed, finally reaching the general consensus. He put an arm around Caia’s shoulders, and I could almost hear the conversation that the two of them would have later that night. “What can we do to help?”
Jericho smiled. “Just hope for the best. We have already prepared for the worst.”
“This is one of those rare instances where I’m glad I’m not alive,” the Time Master muttered. It earned him a sly half-smile from Aphis. The ghoul was striking, not only through his preference to stand upright, but also because of his deliberate silence and stolen glances. I could tell there was something different about Aphis, and I had a hard time looking at him like I’d looked at Rudolph—or any other ghoul, for that matter. I just knew, deep down, that this guy would end up surprising us somehow. “Rest assured, all of you, I will do my best to make sure we all return safely,” Time promised.
“Thank you,” Mom replied. “Soul and the others will work with us on this side of the problem. Unfortunately, none of our communication methods work between this realm and ours,” she added and looked at me. “That means that once you step through that shimmering portal, honey, you’re completely out of our reach.”
A Shade of Vampire 91: A Gate of Light Page 9