A Search for Death (A Shade of Vampire #73) - Bella Forrest Page 0,37
as he’d asked. The terms of this arrangement worked in our favor, after all. I’d get my body back, and he’d get to live freely for it.
“Take care of yourself,” Ramin said to all of us. “Harper will relay everything she’s learned from me, once she’s back.”
“And, worst-case scenario, what if she doesn’t?” Corrine asked, and immediately apologized, noticing the startled glances around her. “I’m sorry, but I have to ask!”
“I will know, and I will find a way to tell you everything myself. I’m afraid there is no time left for me here.”
He lost his humanoid shape and turned into an incandescent ball, hovering inches above the ground. A blink of the eye later, he shot upward and became a tiny glimmer in the sky, before piercing the storm clouds and leaving Calliope altogether.
The Shills, the Bajangs, and the Daughters were getting closer to the crater. Both Herbert and I could hear them. Blood trickled from the upper edge, a quiet and heartbreaking little stream signaling the loss of someone’s life.
“You need to go, now,” Phoenix breathed, increasingly agitated.
Ibrahim showed us the pencil case. “This breaks as soon as I hear Harper’s voice from Neraka again.”
Herbert huffed, then moved away from the group. He rushed upward and out of the crater, and as soon as we reached the top, I could see the true horror unfolding on the plains. Shills and Bajangs at each other’s throats, snarling and biting and tearing and clawing with a viciousness I hadn’t seen since the pit wolves rammed into Shaytan’s daemon army on Neraka, during our final battle. Blood glazed the green grass, and loose tufts of reddish fur were scattered across it. The Daughters were fierce in their defenses, casting violent physical attacks against the Shills—a telekinetic offensive that caught most of them and mangled them beyond recognition. The Bajangs didn’t hold back, either, filling the gaps of the Daughters’ attacks.
But more Shills were coming from the woods. The storm clouds above thickened and darkened, and lightning bolts began to reach down and tear hot holes into the ground around the Daughters and the crater.
“They’ll be fine,” Herbert said, walking away from the conflict, a little too casual for my taste.
“I just want my brother and my friends out of there,” I replied.
He threw a glance back. The farther we got from them, the less I could see. Pink streaks of light dashed into the crater a few minutes later, and everyone disappeared. Herbert breathed the sigh of relief for me. “See? They’re gone now.”
The Bajangs withdrew as well, running as fast as they could back to Stonewall. They left their dead behind, unable to both carry them and fend off the Shills’ attacks. Fortunately, the monsters didn’t chase after the Bajangs. They stayed there, roaring and looking around, trying to figure out where Ramin had gone.
“Are we walking to Neraka?” I asked, my sarcasm back.
“No, sugar plum, we’re going to a high point so I can let loose and tread between dimensions again,” Herbert said to me.
“Okay, now that I can actually process this whole situation properly, can you please tell me how it is that I can hear you and understand you without speaking your hissy language?” I asked. I’d been so busy stressing over Ramin and the others that this blatantly obvious anomaly had entirely slipped from my awareness.
“You’re a sentry. I’m a ghoul. One of the original ghouls, like I once was, made your entire species. Of course we can communicate, darling,” Herbert replied. “You perceive me differently, if I want you to.”
“If you want me to?”
“Well, your brother’s a sentry, but I didn’t bother revealing this type of connection to him, did I?”
No, he hadn’t. He’d stuck to his ghoulish language back in the crater. “Why didn’t you?” I asked him.
“Because it wasn’t the time or the place to establish new relationships between my kind and yours,” Herbert said. He moved remarkably fast, and the world dashed past us in shades of green and dark ocean blue. He took us down the rocky coast, farther south. A tall cliff rose in the distance, its base smothered in trees and leafy shrubs. I figured that was the high point he needed in order to “let loose.”
“I see. Why all the terms of endearment, then? Darling, sugar plum, and whatever else you might come up with along the way. Are they part of your vocabulary? I doubt you’d ever call Ibrahim ‘sugar plum.’” I giggled.