Sour as a bad grape, I ran past Esme and Kalon and passed through walls and doors and down secret staircases until the underground maze unraveled before me once more. The darkness. The humidity. The incessant dripping of water. It was all there. Nothing had changed.
I bolted through the main hallway, paying attention to every sound around me. Every growl and hiss from ghouls locked inside some of these charmed cells. Remembering what we’d learned about ghouls during our Death crew missions, it dawned on me… how had these ghouls been brought here?
“Did Zoltan capture you all?” I wondered. “Or did he… make you?”
Suddenly, the latter option—as chilling as it sounded—felt like the greater possibility. It made sense. Maybe that was what had happened to Rudolph and his crew, too. Maybe Zoltan was keeping them hostage, waiting, torturing them?
“How the hell do you make a Reaper into a ghoul?”
That happened if the Reaper in question ate a soul. Then, the process of degradation would be automatic. What were the odds that Zoltan had figured something like that out? And where the hell did he get the knowledge from?
The best way for me to check was to try and speak to one of the ghouls. Ideally not a loose one that might want to eat me. I already had such a specimen tracking me.
I stopped in front of a large iron door—one of many down the hall, with runes carved all over its black and rugged surface. They were present on the lock, as well. But they had no effect on little ol’ me, a wandering spirit. With all the “what if” theories broiling through my head, I needed some answers.
Taking a deep breath, I listened for a while. Someone was inside, whimpering and wailing and scratching at the walls.
It took courage, but I found some in the pit of my consciousness, and I stepped through the door, smiling. I had one suspicion confirmed: none of these cells were warded against a spirit. Which makes sense. If a wandering ghost comes knocking, the ghouls can just gobble them up before they even realize what’s going on.
The room was small, maybe ten feet by ten feet, tops. Water trickled down the black stone walls. The floor was wet, riddled with small puddles. In the middle, a creature sat, legs crossed. It had remnants of a black suit on and a thick iron collar around its neck—a chain connecting it to the wall behind it.
My spiritual heart jumped as the creature looked up at me. Its eyes were big and black, but there were still galaxies inside them. Only… they were fading. One star at a time, but they were definitely fading. Darkening. Devolving.
“Bert,” I managed, recognizing the Reaper.
He wasn’t a Reaper anymore. He had some of his more recognizable features, but his limbs were slimmer, longer… His bones cracked and shifted inside, and he cried out in pain. His skin had lost its matte complexion, gradually becoming translucent, revealing veins and stringy muscle mass.
“Bert. What happened to you?”
He growled and bolted toward me, his long black claws bursting from the tips of his fingers. That was painful, and he cried again and pulled himself back. I was ready to go through the door again, for my own safety.
“He… He made me…” Bert managed, his voice merely a fractured whisper, staring at his hands and crying black tears. The entire sight of him was strange and awful and heartbreaking. The worst part was that I couldn’t do anything to help him. Bert had eaten a soul.
“How?” I asked. “How did he make you eat a soul?”
That was the part that didn’t make sense to me. It wasn’t like Reapers spent an eternity trying not to eat souls. The entire practice of consuming one’s spirit for the first time was entirely voluntary. So how did Zoltan force it upon Bert—and not just him?
“He… He has ways. Get out. Get help.”
Bert was struggling to talk. His muscles jerked angrily beneath his skin as he resisted the impulse to jump at me again.
“Get… out!” he snarled, and sprang to his feet, menacingly towering over me.
I was shaking. “I’m sorry this happened to you,” I whispered. “I’m sorry.”
“Get out!” Bert roared with the fury of a thousand lions, his veins swelling and darkening beneath his shimmering, almost transparent skin. He was turning and losing control. Soon enough, he’d be nothing but beast.
It still didn’t make sense, though. Once a Reaper ate a soul, he’d first devolve into an original ghoul. Those were self-controlled creatures who needed more spirits in order to stop their degradation into the more animalistic versions of themselves—the kind that ate flesh in the absence of ghosts.
As I walked out and went back into the hallway, I understood that what was happening to Bert was a much more accelerated version of that process. Zoltan had something… he used something to force Reapers into servitude as mindless, feral ghouls.
But I only had Bert as an example. Surely, he wasn’t the only one.
He banged on the door, growling and calling out my name until he could no longer pronounce it. I put a couple more feet of distance between me and the door, just in case. Cold currents blew through me like unforgiving blizzards as I silently said goodbye to him and moved on to the next door.
Without much surprise, I recognized Dina in the cell next to Bert’s. She was in worse shape than him. She couldn’t even articulate full words anymore, thrashing and screaming and inwardly cursing her predicament. She tore her clothes off, revealing her decaying body. It was the same as Bert’s, with transparent skin and shifting bones.
In another cell, I found Lisl. She couldn’t speak, either. All she wanted to do was eat me. I couldn’t help but cry, though I didn’t feel any tears streaming down my cheeks. It was more of an emotional reaction, my spirit still bound to the living world.
The others were here, too, Rudolph included.
He looked better than the others. The moment he saw me, his eyes widened, and he backed himself into a corner. His fangs were growing, pushing through his gums and making him quiver from the pain.
“Rudolph,” I said, my voice trembling. “Do you recognize me? Do you know who I am?”
He nodded once and growled, warning me to stay away. I realized then that he desperately didn’t want to hurt me. That was why he’d kept himself cornered, why he shook so hard… why he grunted and snarled and tried to bite his chain off.
“You want to eat me, don’t you?”
He nodded again.
“Stupid question, I know. I’m sorry,” I said. “Just trying to understand what’s happening here. Zoltan did this to you, huh? To all of you?”
He bared his new fangs at me. But he also nodded a third time.
“I have no idea how this must feel for you,” I continued. “But I’m deeply sorry. I didn’t know the ghoul was out there. It’s still out there, looking for me. I’ve been running from it for two days, now, and I’m terrified. I’m terrified I won’t pay attention for a moment, and at some point it will get me.”
Rudolph stilled, suddenly paying attention. Galaxies died in his eyes, but I knew he was sympathizing. I knew that, despite his physical and spiritual agony, he was trying to stay above, to retain some semblance of consciousness. I kept myself close to the door, though, not wanting to end up a snack.