"Aw. He does love me," the dragon joked.
"How can we help?" Amal asked, utterly amused by these exchanges between Ridan, Raphael, and Herakles. The three had a long-running history since before the Blackout. "I presume you're here because you're in need of assistance?"
Taeral took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Yeah. So, you probably know by now that Death has gone missing, which presents us with quite a conundrum."
The twin Faulties' shoulders sagged. Sadness darkened their bright orange eyes, and they both tucked locks of white hair behind their ears. They were identical in almost everything, including their reflexive movements—yet their characters were surprisingly different. One of them had fallen in love with a dragon, for starters.
"We heard," Amane said. "I am sorry. What can we do?"
"Not much, actually, unless you have a way to find Death, which you certainly don't. And that's okay," Taeral replied. "We just need a place to get our crap together. To figure out what we're going to do next."
"According to the Hermessi, the ritual will likely be completed in less than a day," I said, trying to keep an even tone of voice and failing miserably. There was no easy way to explain how close we were to the total annihilation we'd struggled so hard to avoid. "We can't operate unless we have a plan."
"And to have a plan, we just need a little bit of peace and quiet. The Reapers figured Strava might be a good place to start, since—and you're gonna love this—it used to be a favorite haunt of Death's." Varga chuckled.
Amal smirked. "Should we consider it an honor?"
"Since you weren't alive when she was walking this world, yeah," Soul replied. "I doubt you would have liked it much if you had been."
"Why would you tell them something like that?" Widow muttered. "You're making her look bad."
"She made herself look bad, with her whims and tantrums and constant mind-changing." Soul scoffed. "I love our maker, obviously, but let us not clutch our pearls here. Death is anything but perfect."
"I am," Raphael cut in.
Amane cleared her throat. "Perfect or not, do you know where to find her?" she asked Soul, who shook his head. "So, then, your input regarding her personality is totally useless."
"Kelara!" Seeley exclaimed, straightening his back as he stared into the void. "Yes… Yes, I'm with them. We got Thieron." I understood then that Kelara had gotten in touch through their telepathic connection, just like Seeley had said. I had to admit, this guy was definitely reliable, as far as I could tell. I could trust him with my life. I couldn't say the same thing about Widow, Soul, or Phantom, but it was better than nothing. One truly good Reaper out of four was better than none. "Where are you?" He paused, then smiled. "We're on Strava, inside their GASP base. You'll feel us as soon as—"
Three more Reapers appeared in the middle of the lab. One of them, a female, wore a black suit with a white shirt and tie, similar to Seeley's uniform. The other two were weird twins—their physical features mostly identical. The sister had long white hair and tanned skin. The brother had black hair, and he was paler than a vampire.
"That was quick," Seeley said.
"Dream! Nightmare!" Soul exclaimed, clearly thrilled to see the twins, whom we had identified by now as two of the remaining First Ten. Dream and Nightmare.
"Sorry, I got caught up," Kelara replied, pointing her thumbs at her companions. "They weren't easy to bring along."
"Oh, man, you two are a sight for sore eyes!" Widow blurted.
Before any of us could blink, the First Tenners were engaged in a series of long reunion hugs and laughter, as they were back together again after millions, if not even billions, of years. They'd certainly lost track of time, by the looks of it.
Seeley shook Kelara's hand respectfully. "Good to see you made it out of there alive."
"Well, 'alive' is a pretty relative term for us, isn't it?" Kelara replied, the corner of her mouth twitching. She gave Taeral a brief glance, noticing Thieron strapped to his thigh. "Where's Phyla?" she asked.
Taeral took out Thieron. The black iridescent gemstone glimmered gently in its blade. "All set… Though, to be honest, I have a feeling it won’t do much in my hands, as opposed to Death’s."
"Either way, good job," Kelara said, truly impressed. "You've surpassed our expectations. Now, we need to talk."
"What happened out there?" Seeley asked her. "I tried to reach you before."
"I know. I was busy not getting my dreams eaten by these maniacs," she said, scowling at Dream and Nightmare, who were simply too thrilled to be reunited with their brethren. "Upside is that I did find out who the traitor is. I was with him, and I didn't even know it."
The First Tenners stilled, as Phantom, Soul, and Widow frowned at Dream and Nightmare. "What do you know about that?" Phantom asked the Reaper twins.
"It's Spirit Bender," Kelara said.
The name rang a bell. We'd heard about him before, but we knew little to nothing about him. The only ones who could tell us more about the Spirit Bender were the five First Tenners in the room. Three of them were blank with astonishment, while the other two had stiffened with anger. I hadn’t seen such a display of emotions on Reapers before. Not at this intensity, anyway.
But having a name for the traitor who'd been helping Brendel felt like a huge step ahead. As shocking as it was to those who hadn’t expected the Spirit Bender—or any other Reaper, for that matter—to be involved in the Hermessi's affairs, knowing who he was could bring us closer to Death.
We'd already theorized that the culprit might've been responsible for Death's disappearance. So… what if we could find her through him?
Vesta
The moment we'd all been dreading was already upon us.
Not only had the sanctuary been elevated from the ground and isolated from GASP, but our life-chain links were beginning to fade irreversibly, and no amount of contact between our spirits could fix this. Worst of all, the fae were beginning to die off. Two dozen had already been completely separated from their spirits, the life-chains blackened and snapped off.
We'd had little time or energy left to cope with this or even accept that it was happening. The best we could do was struggle to stay calm and not lose our minds. Needless to say, our hearts were broken. Staring into the abyss was not something I would've wished on anyone, not even the worst of our enemies.
In the meantime, as the fae in the sanctuary continued to die, their spirits crying inconsolably by their Reapers' sides, the Novaks and I decided to do a survey of the sanctuary and everything that was going on outside. Rudolph had been kind enough to describe all that he saw through the windows as the winds continued howling around the sanctuary.
Our morale was at critical levels, but we simply couldn't stand back and accept our fate. Not now, not ever. At least a handful of us would go down resisting and swinging until the last breath.
"Notice how our bodies are glowing brighter than ever," Caia said, staring at hers as concern twinkled in her blue eyes.
Ben glanced around the room. "I don't think we've got much longer. Not because the fae are beginning to die off, but because this is definitely the final stage before the ritual is completed. I doubt we have more than a day left in this world."
