I’d worried about this being a little too easy for all the wrong reasons. Serves me right. Death wouldn’t allow Taeral, Eira, or me to die, but the same couldn’t be said for the rest of our crew. We were in this together, and, as my heart swelled, pumped with fear and unexpected bursts of adrenaline, I reminded myself that we all had to survive.
No matter what.
Amelia
“We can’t go to Persea now,” I said as we pushed our way through the white, endless space.
We lingered in it, floating slowly as we moved our limbs, trying to make it out to the other side. Fortunately, the comms devices in our breathing masks still worked. “What do you suggest?” Taeral asked.
Behind us, the Hermessi—eight of them, now—spilled into the pristine vacuum. Like us, they were subject to the absence of physics in this place, but they were bound to reach us sooner or later. We were hanging by the tiniest of threads, and we knew it.
Persea’s pink water hole opened up about a hundred yards in front of us, and we kept moving, as best as we could, desperate to reach it. The Hermessi back at Death’s palace must have warned the others about us. Death had mentioned it might happen, and clearly, it had. Those creeps must have also given them our location, since they’d been so quick to come after us, even with the Devil’s Weed on our bodies.
We all hurtled to a soft stop as more Hermessi came out from Persea.
“Not only that, but they heard us!” Taeral croaked, his eyes bulging as he watched more elementals pouring in from what should’ve been our way out. “Those sons of bitches were probably eavesdropping on us back at the palace. They must’ve told the Hermessi where we were going.”
“Wow, they were quick,” Varga said.
“Death said it would get more difficult from here on out,” Eira reminded us.
We hovered in the water, with Hermessi coming at us from both sides. Horror crippled me, clutching my throat and squeezing so hard, I was dangerously close to passing out. I felt Raphael’s hand find me, gripping my shoulder as he pulled me closer.
The elementals were in their fiery humanoid forms, making use of their limbs to move toward us. Something was strange, here… They were coming after us physically. There were no tools of nature to use against us in this void, and the pink water had not allowed them to hurt us. They were at odds with these little loopholes of the universe.
I gasped. “Guys, they can’t attack us unless they touch us,” I shouted. “We can get away from here before that!”
Lumi looked at me. “How do you suppose we do that?”
“You people should really stop fighting the inevitable,” a strange feminine voice came through. We followed the source and found Fallon frozen, his eyes wide and burning orange, his lips moving against his will. A Fire Hermessi had a hand through his back, speaking through him.
“Who… Who are you?” Taeral asked, his voice muffled by the breathing mask. It didn’t matter, though. These bastards could see and hear us, anyway, and one of them had gotten too close to Fallon.
“I’m Brendel, and it’s about time you and I met,” the Hermessi replied through the vampire-fae.
It broke my heart to think we’d lose him down here. He was powerful and valuable to the team and our mission, and we’d never made a habit of leaving anyone behind. The other Hermessi moved closer, now just yards away from touching us. Lumi took Acantha’s and Nethissis’s hands, while Varga tried to reach Fallon, who shot him a blazing glance.
“Don’t even think about it,” Brendel said. “You’re not going to stop us. You should’ve understood that by now, but I’m okay with making you learn the hard way.”
“You’re sick! You’re all sick and obsessed!” Eira snapped. “You’re forcing people into extinction because of your stupid ritual!”
“Yes, and if your father fails me in any way, you’ll be there to take his place and continue his legacy,” Brendel said. “It’s the end of the road for your friends, but it doesn’t have to be the same for you. This is bigger than everyone. This is cosmic! And we’re the ones who can pull it off! A new world! A fresh start! It’s inevitable!”
“You’re acting against the universe, and the universe doesn’t like it,” Lumi said, firmly linked to Acantha and Nethissis, who were already whispering some kind of swamp witch spell. My vampire ears picked up on the sounds beneath their breathing masks.
I couldn’t let Fallon die in here, and we had no way of safely reaching Persea now. But I could still take us somewhere, while the swamp witches performed their spell. We didn’t need to speak to one another to know what we had to do. Not with more than a dozen Hermessi getting closer with every second that passed.
Thinking of Nevertide as a better destination, given the circumstances, I felt the portal open, the air rippling past me with intense energy.
“We are the universe!” Brendel said. “And we will complete our ritual!”
Eira showed off Death’s mark on her wrist. “Well, the single most powerful force in the world seems to disagree.”
It appeared to startle Brendel, who cocked Fallon’s head to the side. “Where did you get that?!”
“Now!” Lumi snarled.
The swamp witch trio glowed so brightly that it engulfed us all in the same white light that we’d been trying to move through. We could still see each other, but the Hermessi were blinded. I heard Fallon gasp as Brendel pulled her fiery hand back and lost her humanoid form for a moment.
It was all Varga needed to finally grab Fallon by the collar of his uniform and pull him away from Brendel. I pointed to the Nevertide opening, now open and glistening pink. “Over there!” I said, and Raphael helped me toward it.
We distanced ourselves from the Hermessi, as did the swamp witches. The light they’d conjured lingered, keeping the elementals at bay, somehow. I was dying to know the details of how they’d come up with that kind of magic, but time was of the essence.
We managed to slip through the pink waters of Nevertide, desperate to get as far away from the Hermessi as possible.
“Keep moving!” Lumi said. “The spell will wear off, and I’m not sure the pink waters will close before they come after us!”
Fueled by the desperate need to survive, we swam upward like maniacs, arms and legs swaying and pushing through the primordial liquid, until we passed the infant crystal eggs and our heads pierced through the surface.
“Holy crap, that was close!” Eva yelped.
Looking down, we all saw the white light of the natural portal dimming. No sign of the Hermessi. We’d left them in the void, between worlds, dazed and confused and likely wondering where we’d gone.
“Where the heck are we?” Raphael asked me. He knew I’d been the one to change direction, judging by the look in his green-and-blue eyes.
“Nevertide,” I said.
That had been a narrow escape, and our journey to find Thieron hadn’t even properly begun yet. The Hermessi had gone to extreme lengths to reach us—fortunately, the pink waters and the great void between worlds had worked in our favor, but I knew we wouldn’t always be able to rely on them.
