He frowned. "Still blocked, much like the first time we were here."
"We should still go in," Amelia said. "Maybe she left some clues in there? I don't know."
"I agree," Seeley replied.
Phantom nodded. "This is unlike Death. We should investigate."
"Fine. We'll investigate. We've only got minutes on the clock, but heck, we made it this far, right?" I blurted, then looked at Kabbah. "I trust you'll let us know if you feel Brendel getting closer."
"She's on her way, bucko. That hasn't changed," he replied.
"We'll need a place to go," Eva suggested. "We obviously can't stay on Mortis."
"True, but let's see what's inside first," I said. "If Amelia is right, and we find something that'll lead us to Death, at least we'll have a destination."
"Allow us," Widow replied, motioning for me to get out of the way.
Joined by Soul and Phantom, he took my place in front of the double doors. They took out their scythes and scratched a series of symbols in a circular pattern, whispering in unison. When they were done, they stepped back and clinked the blades together. The brief contact released a flash of light, which coincided with a small, controlled explosion between the doors, smack in the middle of the circle.
The doors swung back, revealing the long, seemingly endless hallway with paper walls and screen doors on the sides. It was dark, for the most part, with small flames still flickering in the wall-mounted lamps.
A chill ran down my spine as we went inside. "Hello?" I called out.
My voice echoed through the building, but no answer came.
We advanced through the hallway, glancing left and right occasionally. The rooms were all empty. The souls that had once resided here were long gone. "Remember the four Hermessi guarding her throne room?" Eira asked me, and I nodded in response. "I think they're coming…"
"They most certainly are," Kabbah said from behind. "I will stand guard outside and hold them back. Devil's Weed won't help you here. They all know you're looking for Death, and this is your first stop."
Glancing over my shoulder, I watched him head back, and I prayed we'd be done with this place before the Hermessi of Mortis got here.
"I wonder if they're still serving Death," Eira said. "They leaked our movements to Brendel the first time around."
"Exactly," Lumi replied. "So put no faith in them. They serve the ritual and nothing else."
"I’m still creeped out by the fact that she had spirits in these rooms," I said as we kept moving. "Purely for company."
Seeley sighed. "She gets lonely. In her defense, I can see why she'd keep souls of the living around. You're all fascinating creatures."
"You were alive, too, a long time ago," Varga retorted.
"I sometimes forget," Seeley replied. "It was more than a thousand years ago."
"There's the throne room," I said, pointing ahead.
It didn't feel like it had before. The weight of her presence was gone. The silence was understandably creepy, but I didn't experience the curious dread I'd first faced upon walking down this hallway.
"Not too shabby, if you ask me," Soul said. "Then again, she had plenty of time to spruce this place up after she lost Thieron."
"She didn't lose it. It was stolen from her," Phantom corrected him.
"Speaking of, I still can't wrap my head around how that happened, in the first place," Eva said, cautiously looking around as we reached the throne room doors.
"I only know what she told me," I replied. "After she stopped the previous ritual, she was weakened, tired. Brendel stayed close enough so as not to get burned by the pulse, then swooped in and snatched Thieron. Death didn't have the strength to go after her."
Soul chuckled. "Brendel was never an idiot. A fanatic, maybe, sure. But she always had the smarts it took to eventually pull off this insane ritual. Believe in something for long enough, and you'll make anything happen."
He glanced at me as he spoke, and I caught the hidden meaning of his words. He'd felt me losing faith in this endeavor, and he was ready to stop me from making a full descent into madness and despair. For that, I would be forever thankful. I gave him a faint nod, just for him to notice.
The throne room doors were open, we realized, as Soul, Widow, and Phantom pulled them to the side.
"Oh, dear," Raphael muttered.
We froze in the doorframe, gawking at the silent horror lying before our very eyes. The throne room's painted paper walls were torn down, and darkness reigned beyond. The wind howled through, fluttering across the dead Reapers that had been left behind.
"Holy crap!" Amelia croaked, pointing at three familiar figures. "Theoth, Wrik, and Baethal! The snarky triplets!"
They were all dead, just desiccated corpses whose more familiar features we could all still recognize. Their scythes were on the ground, shimmering in the faint light coming down from above. Looking up, I could see the flames dwindling in the chandeliers. Soon, this entire place would be swallowed in the same kind of darkness that surrounded the torn walls.
"Their throats were slit," Seeley said as he did a brief survey of the room.
There were dozens of Reapers here, with black-and-white uniforms of different styles, but Baethal, Wrik, and Theoth were still easy to identify. They were closest to the throne, on their backs. Their eye sockets were empty, as if the galaxies that had twinkled in them had vanished upon their assassination.
"Only Death or one of the First Ten can kill Reapers like this," Phantom said. There was genuine concern in her voice, and that worried me the most. This scene worried her as much as it did us. "It's called True Death."
Indeed, this was eerily different from the last Reaper death I'd seen. When Seeley had killed Yamani, he'd turned to ashes in an instant. "How does this happen?"
"It's a cruel way to kill a Reaper," Phantom replied. "The soul is bound to the Reaper's form, forever stuck, unable to move on, unable to do anything. The form itself withers, as you can very well see. It's like staring into eternity as it flows past you, and you… you can't escape."
