A shade of vampire 72 a.., p.22
A Shade of Vampire 72: A Conspiracy of Realms, page 22
This was the kind of trouble that none of us had asked for, and judging by Kabbah’s surprised tone, neither had he.
Amelia
With no way of reaching out for help or getting ourselves removed from this situation, we were basically trapped. Yamani had caught us in this weird Reaper circle drawn in the white powdered ground, and he was taking his time with us, seemingly trying to decide which of us he’d kill first.
Telluris didn’t work. The comms were down. I knew Phoenix had his telescope on us from Calliope, but we’d zapped away from our last known location, and I wasn’t sure he’d seen what we’d dealt with, just yet. I didn’t feel like we could rely on GASP for this—at least not for the next few minutes. And those were the most crucial of all time.
“I think we should start by ridding you of all your worldly things,” Yamani said. He pointed at my backpack, then my weapons. “Off with those, sweetheart. You can’t use them here, anyway.”
I narrowed my eyes at him, trying excruciatingly hard not to lunge at him. It would be a feeble attempt, at best. I knew it, and he knew it. Taeral was down and bleeding, but his side wound didn’t seem too deep. Lumi applied pressure on it, her fingers coated in his blood.
“He needs our help,” I replied, nodding at Taeral.
Yamani chuckled. “Oh, there’s no need. He’s going to die regardless. What’s the point? Now, stop stalling. Hand over the bags and your weapons. And those nifty little earpieces, too, while you’re at it.”
He didn’t spot our breathing masks because they’d been neatly tucked into our pockets since we’d left the pink water. My only hope was that we’d get to use them again and soon. Taeral grunted and pulled his belt off, letting all the pouches mounted on it slip down to the ground. He then tied the belt around his waist, adding more pressure to his wound. The rest of us removed our backpacks, our swords, our knives, and our communication devices and tossed them over to Yamani.
I wasn’t close enough to Yamani to try anything. The circle had a diameter of twenty feet, and I was currently five feet short of an advantageous position. Stalling was necessary at this point, not only to give GASP time to react, but also to allow myself a better entry angle. I had no intention of letting this maniac kill us.
Yamani grinned as he pushed the bags and weapons to the side with his foot. The earpieces were lost in the white powder. We only had Telluris to rely on, going forward, but it was useless inside this circle.
“Now, where were we? Yes!” Yamani resumed his madman dialogue. “Which one of you gets to kick the bucket first?”
“You really had everything figured out, huh?” I asked, stealing a glance at Raphael. I prayed to all the gods that he would notice my intentions without me having to tell him. Lumi and Eira were quiet and flanking Taeral. Yamani had already dealt with Raphael and knew how to avoid another attack.
“I told you, buttercup. I’ve been working on an exit strategy for years,” Yamani replied.
“And out of all the people in the world, we’re the ones you decided on? Gotta say, it doesn’t sound smart,” I shot back with a cold smirk. “You could’ve easily just eaten the soul of any of your reaping targets.”
“That would get the higher-ups involved much faster,” Yamani said, beaming with pride. “Since your deaths will be unnatural and basically off the grid, it’ll be a while before anyone figures out you’re gone. You continue to prove why you’re not the smartest of this bunch.”
“Insults are cheap and easy to come by. They’re the weapons of cowards,” I hissed.
“They get you riled up, though, don’t they?” he retorted, grinning as he raised his scythe at me. “If there’s one thing that really stings, Amelia, it’s when someone doubts your intelligence, huh?”
“Gah, you’re so full of crap,” Raphael grumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose in frustration. I had to give it to him: he was remarkably calm for this situation. Even Lumi, ten-thousand-plus-year-old Lumi, seemed more troubled than Raphael. “Just get to the part where you kill us, already. Listening to you speak is torture. I’m pretty sure it negatively influences the gastronomic quality of our souls.”
Yamani laughed, though it didn’t sound like he was really all that amused. Raphael’s words cut deep. Always. “Even in the face of death, you snicker like a fool.” The Reaper scoffed.
“Right now, I’d rather get hit with a pulverizer pellet and end it all than have to put up with another second of your maniacal gibberish,” Raphael replied. “We get it. You outsmarted us and the other Reapers. You fooled the system. You caught us. You won. Whoop-tee-doo. Now, get on with it.”
Yamani was so busy thinking of a reply to throw back at Raphael, he didn’t even notice my two-foot advancement. I needed three more to do what I had planned over the past couple of minutes, so I slowly raised my hands in a gesture of surrender.
“Hey, if you want to kill someone, you can start with me,” I said.
“Amelia…” Lumi breathed, her slim brows pulled into a deep frown.
“What? He said I’m the dumbest, he’s obviously got some animosity toward me. I say let the Reaper get it out of his system, then, and kill me first,” I replied, scowling at Yamani. “Come on. You’re hungry for my soul, aren’t you?”
The change in his expression made my heart flutter with excitement. I was getting the desired effect. His greed, his desire to consume my spirit, was greater than any of his calculations. Everything he’d done up to this point could crumble, if I played my cards right. Or, I could hit and miss and get myself killed.
“You’re surrendering?” he asked me, his incredulity glaring.
“No. Like Raphael said, you’re a pain to listen to. My ears will start bleeding soon. Just end it already.”
Yamani moved closer. The three feet I needed… He raised his scythe above my head. Needless to say, my heart was pounding. “Fine. Then let’s start with—”
Raphael moved in and tried to claw his throat out, but Yamani brought the scythe down with lightning speed. The blade slashed through his shoulder. Raphael wasn’t supposed to intervene, dammit! I only had a split second left, as Yamani had his eyes off me.
I swooped in between them. With one swift hit, I pushed his elbow upward and broke his arm. He squealed from the pain, while I pushed him backward. The scythe was left in Raphael’s shoulder. I quickly pulled it out, gripping the ivory handle firmly. He growled from the pain but held his ground.
Gasps erupted from Taeral’s side.
Yamani cried out, his right arm limp by his side. “You bitch! You wretched—”
“Hey! Language!” I snapped, and pointed the scythe at him.
In an instant, the color drained from his face. His skin became pale, his eyes darkened by violet rings. Once more, he’d been reduced to the meek creature that Raphael had initially taken down. The scythe’s influence and power was obvious.
“So, change of plans,” I continued, glancing back at Raphael. He was injured, and it didn’t look like he could use his left arm anymore. Blood trickled between his fingers as he used his right hand to put some pressure on the wound. It was even worse than Taeral’s, and Raphael’s self-healing ability wasn’t working. “Are you okay? Can you move?” I asked him.
He nodded once. “I’ll live.”
I shifted my focus back to Yamani. He wasn’t healing, either. “This scythe of yours does a lot of things, huh?” I said in a rhetorical fashion. “I wonder, can I kill you with it? Can one kill a Reaper with his own weapon?”
“You can put it to the test,” Taeral suggested.
“Okay,” I replied, raising the blade.
Yamani sneered at me. “It doesn’t do everything for me. Some things I do myself.”
Not willing to let him show me, I swung my arm down. Yamani vanished.
“Oh, crap,” I heard Raphael say behind me.
The white dust unsettled around us. “Get the gear!” Lumi shouted and rushed toward the backpacks and weapons. The powder burst into a white cloud. A second later, all our stuff was gone.
I swung the scythe in the air, trying to hit Yamani, but I couldn’t see the creep. He’d switched to his subtle form. I noticed the circle line got broken. Footsteps padding away from us. Everything was happening so fast, I only had time to think of a way out.
“Tae, get us out of here!” I said.
“But our stuff—” he tried to reply, but I abruptly cut him off.
“No time! Dammit, we don’t know what the Reaper can do, even without his scythe. We’ve been here long enough; we need to go. Now!”
We all linked hands, and Taeral teleported us to the top of the cliff. A few yards to our left was the cave opening from which we’d come out. The pink water awaited beneath. Panting, we took a minute to recover from a most dreadful experience.
I bit into my wrist and offered my blood to Raphael, who was grunting from the pain inflicted by the scythe. His shoulder kept bleeding, refusing to heal. Raphael drank some of my blood. I then moved to give Taeral a drop or two, to speed up his recovery, but froze when Raphael doubled over and vomited the very blood he’d just taken from me.
“Oh, that can’t be good,” I breathed.
My blood was doing more harm than good.
“How is that possible?” Taeral croaked, unable to believe what he was seeing—much like the rest of us.
“I… I don’t know,” I said, crouching by Raphael’s side. He was coughing and spitting more blood, on his knees, his shoulder still wide open. “Raph. Talk to me.”
“It tasted like acid… I don’t know why… I can’t…”
I glanced at the scythe, then at Taeral, Lumi, and Eira. “I think it’s the Reaper blade.”
“Guys…” Eira managed, eyes wide as she stared at a distant point behind me.
We all followed her gaze. The ground shook beneath us. A giant… something pushed its way out from under the city we’d just left behind. The buildings crumbled. The alleys were torn to shreds. A massive figure made of red-hot lava and rocks rose from the middle, fire spurting from its head.
“Oh, God…” I breathed.
The earthquake became more violent. By the time we reached out to one another, the entire top of the cliff exploded outward and threw us off the mountain. We tumbled down like loose pebbles, hitting stones and hard dirt along the way. Every inch of my body ached as I curled up in an attempt to soften the landing—it would come soon enough.
I could hear the others’ grunts and gasps as they unwillingly came down with me. I caught glimpses of Eira, of Lumi and Taeral and Raphael while I twisted and fell hard against every damn chunk of stone that lined the base of that mountain.
I finally stopped, flat on my belly, my head half-sunken into white dust. Groaning from multiple points of pain, I realized that our hell was only just beginning. It took me a minute to regain my full consciousness, while the something I’d spotted earlier roared and gargled. It sounded much closer than before.
Fear crippled me, blocking my joints. Or maybe the fall had had a part to play in this particular sensation. I managed to raise my head, enough to see the lava and stone abomination make its way toward us. Each of its steps covered about a mile or two, and it seemed pretty spry for its titanic size. I knew then that this entity’s appearance was not an accident or a coincidence. I patted my bodysuit and felt the sprig of Devil’s Weed still there.
“That’s a message from the Hermessi,” Lumi said, her voice faltering somewhere to my right. I glanced around and felt a sliver of relief to see everyone still moving. Taeral was the first to get up. He rushed over to Eira’s side and brought her to a vertical position, next.
My pulse quickened as I pulled myself up on all fours and scuttled toward Raphael. I needed to get him standing, as well. “This isn’t right,” Eira replied. “We’ve got the Devil’s Weed. We didn’t make any unnecessary noise.”
“Yamani might’ve had a hand in this,” Raphael suggested as I helped him up. He leaned on me, and boy, was he heavy! I had extra weight on my knees, now, and my legs were weak. I leaned back into him, in an attempt to balance us both without toppling over.
“So now they’re making Titans?” I snapped, overwhelmed by everything.
“You are really good with names. Have I told you that?” Raphael replied, slightly amused.
That monstrosity reminded me of ancient Greek titans, hence my decision to name it so. Only, this one was made by the Hermessi—yet another display of violence and grandeur aimed specifically at us.
“We need to get back up there and… oh…” Taeral’s voice trailed off as he looked up. Half of the mountain had come down. Some jagged rocks were still tumbling down, but most of the cliff’s top had reached the bottom around the same time as us.
“That can’t be right,” I huffed. Even my brain couldn’t keep up with all this.
Fires burst from the white dust around us. Tall and thick blazing columns that formed a tight circle around us. The lava-and-stone Titan was still coming, now halfway across the field.
“So the Hermessi definitely know we’re here,” Eira said, pale as a sheet of paper.
“Oh, hi there!” Yamani reappeared in front of us, on the other side of the fire columns. His smile was flat and strained, and he was pale and almost lifeless without his scythe, which I’d yet to let go of—to my own surprise.
“You did this?” I gasped.
He shrugged. “More or less. I had some help.”
Raphael caught my hand. I noticed he was linked to Taeral and the others. We vanished.
A second later, we reappeared on the western ridge of the partially demolished cliff. The lava monster was still very much there, growing larger with every ginormous step it took. Bright flashes burst from its body. Orange pellets hit the white powdered ground. The pristine dust was quickly turned to soot and ripples of black glass from the high temperature of lava spurting from this monster.
Fire burst around us again.
“Excuse me, I’m not done!” Yamani laughed, making himself visible once more.
“He’s really getting on my nerves, now,” Taeral said, gritting his teeth.
We didn’t let go of each other, and he tried to teleport us again. The fire columns released a flurry of sparks. They all burned white hot and made us scream from the pain. I could feel them eating away at my bodysuit and even my skin before they faded. This was a warning. Don’t teleport again. We’re not done with you.
If dying by rogue Reaper had scared the life out of me, then ending at the hands of Hermessi was even worse. We’d worked hard to avoid this exact scenario.
The earth’s tremors didn’t stop. The winds began to rise. All the elements still living on Hellym were letting us know that they were here and eager to destroy us. After all, only the Water Hermessi had been killed. Earth, Air and Fire were still alive, stranded on this dead world. Like Cerix would’ve frozen, with Air, Water and Earth stuck on it, had Inalia not taken Brann’s place. Well, Air, Water and Earth would’ve had the option to leave, like Brann had, but I didn’t remember it being a permanent solution. The Hermessi was naturally bound to its home planet. Part of it would always be there, keeping the elements flowing.
“I didn’t want to have to do this but you pushed me!” Yamani spat. “I had to reach out to the Hermessi for help.”
“Well, they want us dead, you want us dead… I’m surprised you didn’t think of this sooner,” I retorted. Parts of my face burned, where the sparks had hit me. I’d heal soon enough, and it wasn’t enough to incapacitate me. My survival instinct was kicking in once more, this time stronger than ever.
“The Hermessi are a little too loud for my taste.” Yamani sighed, sounding disappointed, his gaze fixed on the scythe. There was a mixture of concern and anticipation coming off him, and it was directly related to his weapon, now in my possession.
The fire beams swelled around us. He didn’t need to kill us himself, now. The Hermessi could do it for him. All he had to do was be here to eat our souls. But then it hit me why Yamani was uncomfortable with this decision. I couldn’t help but grin.
“The Hermessi killing us would alert the Reapers sooner, huh? It’s not something you can sweep under the rug,” I said.
And hit the nail on the head, judging by his expression.
Empowered by this knowledge, I understood that every second we had was now essential to our survival. It’s not over yet.
“Telluris, Viola,” I murmured, my eyes set on Yamani. I wondered if our soul connection had resumed, now that we were out of the circle. It wasn’t a certainty, since we were still surrounded by the Hermessi, and they, too, had a knack for interfering with our communications.
“Amelia?” Viola’s voice came through, and my heart almost exploded.
“Viola, get GASP over here ASAP!” I said. “Make all the noise you can. We’re being hunted by a—”
I froze. I couldn’t feel Viola anymore. I couldn’t feel the thread of hope I’d been hanging on to. But we’d come too far, already. It’s not over yet. It can’t be over…
However, none of us had a way out. The fire pillars wouldn’t let Taeral teleport us anywhere. He was also tired and wounded, and I doubted he’d last much longer, zapping us around like this. The Hermessi had locked on to us, and Yamani was determined to consume our souls and complete his longstanding mission. I couldn’t get Viola. Our Telluris link had gone dark, and I worried something might’ve happened on her end, as well.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, there was a big-ass Titan headed our way, spouting fire and lava like a pierced, sentient volcano. Yeah, not over yet, but not lasting much longer.
