It would only get slower and harder from here.

The specters kept coming, and I had no time to think of alternatives. I'd tried spells, but none had been designed for mass reaping. Death had always been an individual experience, and it applied to the Reaper, as well. I visited the person whose time would soon be up. I waited patiently for them to die. Then, I spoke to them, soothed and prepared them for their next step, which was out of my reach and field of knowledge, too. That was it. Simple, but deeply personal and significant.

What we were doing here was rather crude and rushed, but it obviously had to be done.

"Is this like an endless stream of specters?!" Dream managed.

Nightmare whispered a spell into his scythe and swung it outward with a hiss. A powerful wind erupted from the blade and threw some of the specters back, enough for Dream to start reaping them, one by one, before he joined in.

"He must've been around when the asteroid hit," I said, springing for a theory that could explain this mass of souls he'd had handy for such a trap.

"What about the other Reapers?" Nightmare asked. "Surely, more of them would've been summoned."

I was suddenly confused. "Wait. You said you were here! You met with some of the other First Tenners!"

"Yeah, before the asteroid hit! We weren't here on a mission. We didn't see the thing come down, and we certainly weren't present for the reaping part!" Nightmare blurted.

"Jeez… You could've been more specific," I muttered.

"It must've happened not long after we left, though," Dream said. "The impact, I mean."

"Okay, so how do so many people die and no Reaper but the friggin' Spirit Bender shows up?" I asked. "I am horribly confused here!"

"We don't know!" Dream replied. "He probably made a request to one of the higher circle Reapers—we’re not presiding over them anymore, remember? But Spirit Bender still worked among the Reapers, as one of them, not as a superior. We might be the first made, but that doesn’t mean we can do whatever the heck we want—the freedom Death gave us does not give us any authority over the Reaper systems. It’s why Spirit settled for a lower position in the first place. So, he had to have made a request."

"To cover an entire planet in case of a disaster?" I said.

Nightmare took out a few more specters and shot me a grin, while I worked my way through a bunch of my own. "Honey, we're First Tenners. We're strong enough to reap an entire planet by ourselves. It just takes a bit of time to talk to all of them at once and make them understand that it's time to move on. Once they get that key fact, they just surrender. Most of them, anyway."

"Can't we do that here?" I asked.

"Do any of them seem willing to talk?" Dream retorted.

I groaned. "Point taken."

The crowd closed in on us again, prompting Nightmare to do another wind spell to push them back. We got to reaping once more, while angst wormed its way through my chest and into my stomach. We had to find a faster way to finish this!

As far as the eye could see, there were specters. Hundreds of thousands of them now, like an endless stream of anguish and misery and agony.

A growl erupted from afar. It was not alone. Beasts roared from our left, still hundreds of feet away from us. Were those specters trying out new battle sounds?

Something glimmered in the distance. I followed it with my gaze for a while, until it came into focus. A ghoul.

"What the…" My voice trailed off as I realized it wasn't alone.

No, there were dozens of them, hurtling toward the crowd of specters. They galloped through the air at first, gradually descending onto the crowd.

Nightmare gasped, hearing the growls as well. "You've got to be kidding."

The ghouls rammed into the sea of specters, their massive fangs tearing through their spirits, forcing them to fall apart into billions of sparks. Many they ate up as they advanced.

The specters around us stopped, frozen by what I could only describe as dread. They'd heard ghouls before. They knew what they were and what they could do. Suddenly, the crowd split into dozens of threads, each going in a different direction.

"Hah, turns out they fear ghouls more than they fear us. How… insulting," Dream said, watching the horror unfold.

The ghouls worked their way toward us, chomping down on all the souls they could catch along the way. They were big and gray, with skin that was near-transparent and big, dark, sunken eyes. Their claws tore through the specters before they ate them whole. I felt sorry for them… They were forever lost, never to move on, but, truth be told, this was definitely a faster way to resolve our time-pressing issues.

One of the ghouls stood out—not because of his size or agility, for they were all fearsome and exquisite hunters. No, he stood out because he whispered commands to his brethren, pointing in various directions across the scattered crowd, and they listened.

"I've never seen something like this before," I murmured, unable to take my eyes off him. His lanky finger pointed at me next, and I did not like it. His eyes found mine, and I wasn't sure what to make of this.

"They're organized," Dream said, matter-of-factly.

"I take it you've seen this before?" I asked her.

She and Nightmare nodded. "Not that big a pack, though. I must admit, I'm impressed."

"Also, why is their leader pointing and looking at me?" I replied.

Nightmare chuckled. "Well, you are quite easy on the eyes."

"Brother, don't be an ass," Dream scolded him.

To our surprise, the specters moved away from us as the ghouls got closer. The Reapers-turned-monsters ate everything in their path, without discrimination or control. It prompted the three of us to move closer together and point our scythes at them, as a means to warn them not to try anything stupid.

The ghoul who'd been eyeing me reached us first, though, leaving the others to keep feeding on specters. Finally, I could breathe. My arm felt sore. All that swinging had worn me out, it seemed. I might've been stuck between the world of the living and that of the dead, but I still had sensations in my form. I could still suffer or wear out, though not as quickly as in my human life.

"Don't take another step," I warned the ghoul. My voice didn't sound certain, and I wasn't sure why. I could still take him and his whole crew before they could so much as poke a hole through my smart suit.

The fiend straightened his back, his long, lanky fingers wiggling at his sides. "I'm not here to do you harm. None of us are," he said, his voice clear as daylight in my head.

Ghouls could no longer communicate by using their mouths, but they still had telepathic abilities. I'd seen them communicating with sentries in a similar fashion, so being able to hear and understand him wasn't exactly a surprise.

"I take it you came here for the buffet? Who tipped you off?" Nightmare asked him.

The ghoul sneered at the First Tenners. "You two are not my favorite people. I'd rather speak to Kelara here."

"You know me?" I replied, rather perplexed.

"I've served the living for a long time. Not of my own free will, at first, but they sort of grew on me," the ghoul said. "Word has spread about your endeavors, and I had my own share of brushes with the Hermessi not that long ago. I've come to help you."

Dream and Nightmare raised eyebrows at each other, looking downright insulted.

"I'm sorry, what did we do to offend you, ghoul?" Dream shot back.

Around us, few specters remained. The ghouls drove them away, the others long gone by now.

"My name is Herbert. And I am no fan of the First Ten. Most have done nothing but harm to the world of the living. I heard about you all recently. The tales of your involvement with the people… It is shameful."