“We know that,” Astra took the lead. “Which is why we’re focusing on recon and not on anything else. We have established clear protocols of non-engagement, per GASP guidelines and hostile territory policies.”
Phoenix chuckled, his eyes glassy with tears. “My baby’s all grown up and totally mastering the GASP terminology. I’m a proud dad, for sure.” It made Viola giggle softly, and it drew smiles from each of us. Fortunately, and despite the dire circumstances, our ability to laugh had survived.
We were going to need it.
“I’m ready,” Astra said, breathing out slowly, then looked at me. “We have everything we need, right?”
I nodded once. “Blood supplies. Food. Healing serum. Invisibility capsules. Backup weapons and comms pieces. The works. We’re good to go.”
Mom and Dad wrapped their arms around me, holding tight for a while as I absorbed every second of this embrace. I remembered when I’d been only a kid, and they’d brought me over from Visio. The first thing they’d done as my parents, as soon as we’d set foot onto The Shade, was to hug me and promise me that I would always be loved and safe with them. It felt wrong to see Hrista destroy that oath they’d made to their son. She had to be stopped.
The others bid their farewells, while Mom whispered in my ear. “No matter what happens, remember you’ve got something to come back to, okay? Your mom, your dad, your brother and sister—”
“Who will absolutely be annoyed that they didn’t get to say goodbye like you,” I shot back with a bitter chuckle, though I understood why we’d had to keep this assembly small and discreet.
“You know we have to operate away from the others,” Dad said. “You’ll be gone, and yes, we’ll get our share of nagging from them, but in the end, they will come to terms with how this went down. It’s better this way.”
“Mhm, it’s better to ask for forgiveness than for permission, right?” I chuckled.
Dad reached out and grabbed me by the back of my neck. He pressed his lips against my forehead. He hadn’t kissed me since I was a kid, and it felt nice to feel his affection toward me at such a pivotal point of my existence. I caught a glimpse of Myst watching us. The endearment was there, written all over her face. I could see it. The sight of us warmed her heart, though I wondered how much familial affection she even remembered as a Valkyrie, and whether she missed it.
“You and Astra will lead this team, and you will get what you must from The Shade,” Dad said, drawing my focus back to him. His eyes drilled holes into my soul, and I was compelled to listen carefully. “You will alert the rest of GASP as soon as you get out there, by whatever means possible, and you will instruct them to standby until we find our way back to The Shade. Then you will come back to us son, okay?”
“Okay.”
Astra hugged her mom and dad, then gave me a confident nod. “I’m ready,” she said, though her voice trembled slightly.
“Cool. Let’s do this. I’m not a big fan of drawn out, emotional moments,” Brandon replied and clapped his hands once with renewed enthusiasm. Hammer, ever his faithful companion, let out a brief howl to express his own excitement about what would happen next—not that any of us had any real clue as to what awaited us beyond this realm. “Pinkie, remember your training.”
Astra smiled and put her hands out, palms in a vertical position as she took deep breaths. Her skin lit up white, and the air around her buzzed with a peculiar energy. It only intensified as the minutes ticked by, crackling furiously by the time a ripple emerged in front of her. Clearly, she’d been practicing.
I held my breath.
It looked as though space itself was the surface of a lake, and Astra’s magic had just thrown a pebble into it. The ripples multiplied and stretched outward, while our crew slowly moved behind her. Our parents stepped back, their eyes wide as they watched it unfold before them.
Slowly, a white gash appeared across the ripples. It widened, its interior shimmering like an endless sea of diamonds bathed in pure sunlight. It was beautiful and terrifying at the same time. Astra measured her breaths, while Brandon whispered in her ear—encouragements, I assumed—his words must have had a positive effect on her, because the shimmering portal grew taller and wider. Astra’s hands clenched into tight fists. She glanced at us over her shoulder.
“We need to go. Now,” she said.
One by one, we said our last round of tremulous goodbyes and stepped through the portal. We’d done it before, though not thanks to a true Shadian. Either way, the sensations were identical. The vast, diamond-filled space that glimmered between the fake realm and ours seemed greater than ever. Infinite, actually, and almost blindingly white.
We moved cautiously, putting one foot in front of the other.
“Man, this only gets scarier,” Jericho grumbled in front of me.
Brandon chuckled. “Wait till you meet the rest of my Berserker brothers.”
“You are optimism incarnate,” Dafne retorted.
Behind me, Astra walked in silence. The portal had already closed. I caught her eye briefly. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I think so. I feel… odd. I don’t know why,” she said. “I used to be able to feed on shimmering portals opened by Hrista. I guess that’s clearly not the case now, since it’s my energy going into them. I must just be a little tired.”
“There it is,” the Time Master exclaimed, pointing ahead. A portal had opened, revealing a strange sea of more light. “That’s weird.”
“The Shade is supposed to be dark, isn’t it?” Myst asked.
“Yes,” I mumbled, frowning as I tried to make out something, anything, from beyond the portal. “But it could be Sun Beach.” Just to be safe, I pulled on my hood and mask, ready to protect myself from what was clearly a bright sun. This was clearly crazy, but our sense of adventure compelled us to proceed. History would not be written by cowards.
But as soon as we stepped through the portal, we knew something was wrong. The air felt different. The light was too bright, and it was everywhere. It took me a while to adjust to the strange view that surrounded us. The colors were wrong.
Grass wasn’t green. Flowers were all white, regardless of their shapes. The sky was made of fractured crystals, and I couldn’t find a sun anywhere, just an abundance of white light that filtered through the heavens and came down with a wonderful but strange warmth. The air tasted sweet. The wind tickled my face.
We found ourselves atop a hill, but we couldn’t see much in the distance. Thick woods rose around us, with tall trees that resembled molten candles. The greenery was gold, the trunks painted chalk white—or maybe that was their natural color. The grass sparkled in shades of soft bronze and copper.
None of this made any sense.
“This feels… wrong,” I managed, then looked to Astra. She was stunned, all words gone from her lips as she gawked at our surroundings, trying to make sense of what had happened.
“This isn’t The Shade,” the Time Master said, alarm marring his otherwise fine features. Even the stars in his eyes were rattled as he glanced my way. Aphis was equally disturbed, the blackness of his gaze stirred by the mystery we’d clearly just walked into.
“I swear I thought about The Shade,” Astra blurted, suddenly shaking. “I wanted us to go home, I’ve opened shimmering portals before. Granted, I never went through any of them, but now… Oh, god, what have I done?”
Brandon and Myst, on the other hand, appeared more pleasantly surprised. Hell, they were both smiling. “You’ve accomplished something even better,” the Berserker replied, Hammer’s tail eagerly wagging beside him. “You’ve brought us to Purgatory.”
The revelation hit me like a mallet. It knocked the air out of my lungs, and I froze on the spot, unable to do or say anything. My entire existence had been turned upside down once again. We’d left the fake island thinking we were going to the real one. Instead, we’d ended up in the one place that we, the living, certainly didn’t belong, not even for a hot, accidental second.<
br />
Our initial plan had just been blown to smithereens. We were in Purgatory.
Death
Time, for most, was linear. Even my Reapers perceived it as such. They knew of a beginning, and they expected an end. I, however, experienced time as something fluid. My past, my present, and my future were melted into one another—a swirling soup of things that had happened, things that were happening, and things that had yet to happen. Unlike the living, I did not care for preventing the future from taking something from me, including my own existence. It wasn’t my responsibility to stand before the fates and tell them “Not today!” I saw everything, and I floated with it. Through it. Under and over it.
Living in the past, the present, and the future at once could be confusing, even for me. Focusing on a singular thread sometimes made everything more bearable. It anchored me somewhere, and I no longer felt like I was wandering aimlessly in the never-ending expanse of the cosmos.
I kept an eye out for it. My mistakes were still fresh in my mind. The way I’d treated Unending. The way I’d treated all my Reapers, for that matter, even the wretched Spirit Bender. Many people claimed he was my gravest mistake, but I had always disagreed. He’d been a resourceful bastard, yes, but no one could ever be as dangerous as the World Crusher. And to think I had allowed the Soul Crusher to name himself, comfortable knowing his eldest sister would never see the light of day again. The similarity between their names still made me cringe.
“I’ve made a mess of things,” I said. Sometimes speaking words aloud made the statements feel more real, if only for a moment. Nothing was truly linear to me. Not even actions and the consequences that came with them. Everything expanded into a flurry of events that I had to make sense of, to understand and acknowledge.
Unlike the Reapers, I maintained an undying connection to the World Crusher. She wasn’t linked to anyone else. Now that she was free, they would not be able to feel her like I could. Tracing her steps from Biriane required a certain amount of concentration. My beloved Thieron lit up white as the scythe, resonating with the faint energy traces World had left behind. All I had to do was follow, though I would need more to get a precise location.
She led me far from her prison, across oceans of sparkling dynasties and an abyss of emptiness, through asteroid fields and along floating rivers of multicolored stardust. The pinks were deep and mesmerizing, electrified by the pure, untamed energy that burned through them, courtesy of the Word. We were so far from the known reaches of the universe, so deep within existence, that I could sense my brother’s sleepy presence in everything around us. It wasn’t his custom to intervene, and I doubted he would unless I asked. And I wouldn’t ask until I was absolutely overwhelmed and unable to resolve this on my own.
Considering how my ego had gotten the better of me before, I wasn’t sure where that particular line would be drawn. But the World Crusher was my mess to clean up and no one else’s. I had made her, and I had made her too strong—her power nearly rivaled my own. My dread of utter loneliness had clouded my judgment and foresight, the irony of which did not escape me. Taking a deep breath, I tried to envision the path ahead.
I settled on the back of a turbulent comet. Its tail trailed red and purple behind me, furiously sparking and flashing. The light emanating from this magnanimous projectile coursed through me and helped soothe my fragile nerves. I did not like chasing after people. I had not existed for so long to have my leg pulled by lesser beings. And if they thought they could get the better of me, then they were dumber than I’d thought.
“There you are,” I muttered, glancing ahead. Swarming across a tumbling asteroid, six Ghoul Reapers huddled together behind a sharp ridge, thinking they could hide from me. I’d allowed my presence to be felt. I’d wanted them to sense me coming. Their fear was my delight. The World Crusher wasn’t too far away, but I knew I wouldn’t be able to reach her without the ghouls’ help, and they were too indoctrinated by her toxicity to leave her be. The Ghoul Reapers followed the World Crusher around, so I only had to follow the Ghoul Reapers. My connection to World was worthless if she insisted on hiding herself from me. I felt her through Thieron, but I just couldn’t put my finger on her.
I hopped off the comet, leaving its delicious heat behind. My bare feet touched the rugged asteroid, its surface embedded with cold flakes of platinum that cooled my soles. I heard the Ghoul Reapers scrambling to get away from me. Raising Thieron, I whispered my magic. The pulse exploded outward to raise an invisible barrier around us on a twenty-yard radius. Whenever the Ghoul Reapers tried to breach it, blue light ripples danced across its surface. I heard their muttered curses and whispered concerns. Yes, they knew I’d caught them.
The Spirit Bender had been a bitter being, and I had contributed to his anger by withholding the survival of his species. I’d enjoyed playing with the beings I’d created. Some, I’d only messed with briefly—like Dream and Nightmare’s addiction to the dreams of the living. They would never wean off it. Ever. For as long as they existed, the twins would feel the pull of people’s dreams. Their souls would demand the nourishment. With others, I’d gone to greater lengths. The Spirit Bender had had it the worst, though Unending—the poor girl—I’d never meant to torment her like this. The ability to grant immortality should have been something wondrous and honorable, but I had forbidden Unending to give it to anyone, and then I’d chastised her for doing it anyway. It had not been my intention at the time. I’d wanted her to use it, and then I’d changed my wretched mind.
Each of the First Ten had suffered at my hands in one form or another, yet they had loved and worshipped me. I had nothing but adoration for them as well, but I also did not care much if they suffered. I lacked a proper grasp of pleasure or joy. The Time Master had once said that I was like a child with a magnifying glass on a bright sunny day, having stumbled upon an ant colony. I caused pain only to see what would happen. That was a shamefully accurate description.
And the Time Master… He felt time as I did, with no actual beginning, middle, or end, and with no power to change anything he saw coming, either. I’d tweaked his ability with that specific limitation. He could go into the future or the past, but only by a minute or two. He could see much farther than that, but his mouth simply refused to open whenever he wished to talk about it. His physical form refused to move whenever he tried to do something about it. Time had tried many times to prevent tragedies from occurring, but he’d eventually given up. He’d learned to keep it all to himself.
I wondered how long it would be before he turned against me. It was bound to happen. Unending was already bitter beyond repair, but at least she was in a body and busy with other aspects of her existence. One less Reaper for me to worry about in terms of a potential mutiny. For now, my focus had to remain on the World Crusher. Of all my creations, she was the most dangerous. She had the power to undo everything in the realm of the living, and she had the will to do it. For the time being, my only fortune was that she wasn’t aware of it, though I was certain she’d had plenty of time for in-depth studies during her imprisonment.
“There’s no point in hiding,” I said, loud enough for the Ghoul Reapers to hear me.
One by one, they came out from behind the black jagged ridge, each warier than the last. The sight of them made me smile, even while they shuddered with a mixture of fear and anger in my presence. They still resembled the Reapers I’d hired to keep the World Crusher from destroying Biriane, but they also looked like the failures who’d helped undo the one element that had kept her from seeking revenge against me for so long. This was what she wanted. Revenge. And I probably deserved it, but the living did not. I owed it to the universe that had made me to try and do something about this.
“You boys are in a heap of trouble,” I added, measuring each of the Ghoul Reapers from head to toe. Eneas was still their leader, tall and slender, with black marble eyes and long blond hair. His brothers were like slightly modified copies of him, as only a few differences made them di
stinguishable from him. Fileas’ features were more refined, his physical grace distinctive and unforgettable. His scythe cut the deepest, too. He was the first to speak.
“I think we’ve earned our freedom.”
I nodded to Hadras. The scars of Tristan’s handiwork persisted, but he’d healed well. “You’re a mess. Thank you, nonetheless. Had you not engaged Unending’s husband, I wouldn’t have discovered that peculiar ability of his.”
“You’re telling me you didn’t know he could do that?” Eneas shot back, sneering as he crossed his arms and met my gaze in defiance.
“Believe it or not, I can still be surprised,” I replied dryly. “As for your freedom, it was fraudulently obtained and therefore invalid.”
That earned me furious growls from Filicore and Malin, but Deas wasn’t surprised. Instead, he shook his head, the corner of his mouth twitching. “I told you she’d come after us.”
“You deceived Unending into setting the World Crusher free. You conspired with my first Reaper, and that, my darlings, borders on unforgivable. You’ve unleashed potential destruction upon the same universe you were sworn to protect,” I said. “How will you repair this catastrophic error?”
The Ghoul Reapers exchanged nervous glances. None dared to challenge what I had just said, because they knew it to be true. I might have been an absolute bitch to keep them locked down on Biriane for so long, but I couldn’t leave a bunch of Ghoul Reapers free, either. And I certainly did not want to destroy them, undeserving as they were of becoming such soulless creatures. They were unfortunate accidents, and I wished I had the ability to truly care about them. But I did not. There was no point in saying otherwise.
“When Unending showed up outside the Temple of Roses, you should have sent her away,” I said. “But you didn’t. You had allied yourselves with Anunit, hadn’t you?”
A Shade of Vampire 91: A Gate of Light Page 10