A Shade of Vampire 84 A Memory of Time - Bella Forrest Page 0,90

into his humanoid form, prompting the Reapers to squirm and moan in protest. “Good grief, man!” Widow turned away.

“You perv!” Soul mumbled, looking away.

“Sorry!” Ridan shot back. “Shifting doesn’t include clothes.”

I slipped Ramus’s heart into my satchel, and we all linked hands. Trev leaned into me, and that was all the physical contact he needed. A few more minutes without any healing packs, and he’d pass out again.

Danika looked terrible, black-and-red crusts covering her whole body. That long blonde hair was gone. Her clothes, too. The prosthetics had melted, and I could see some of her bones through the charred flesh. As long as she had the scythe on her, she wouldn’t burn completely. Now the fire was out, but she was far too weak and in too much pain to even try to move.

“I’ll kill you!” she bawled. “I’ll kill you all!”

“What’s with the fried chicken?” Hunter asked Ridan, pointing a thumb at Danika. “New recipe?”

I couldn’t hold back, bursting into laughter as Kelara teleported us away from this snow-laden clearing. We’d left death and destruction in our wake, but we’d managed to retrieve Ramus’s heart. Danika still only had three shards of Spirit’s soul, and the damage she’d taken would take a while to heal. Even with death magic protection, dragon fire had managed to do quite a number on her.

As soon as we reappeared in Roano, however, more trouble waited for us. Seniors were rushing toward the north tower. Dozens of them, their fangs and claws out, aggression radiating from them. There was a general air of danger in the city, and it hung heavy and thick, like smoke.

“Ridan, here,” I murmured, pulling a simple one-piece set of overalls from my satchel. I always carried one just in case he needed it. The perks of dating a dragon…

“Something’s wrong,” Widow muttered.

“We don’t have Telluris to reach out to Derek anymore, either,” I said. “Danika burned our comms, too, with that pulse.”

We made our way up the cobbled road, looking around carefully as we went. The Orvisians stayed back, giving each other confused and worried looks. There was no sign of the other Reapers in this part of Roano. I didn’t see Esme or Sofia anywhere. Or Kalla. Only more Seniors running, eager to take someone or something on.

Finally, I spotted Arya farther ahead. “Arya!” I shouted. “What’s happening?”

She stopped and turned around, surprised to see us all here. I put Trev down and handed him a healing pack filled with nutrients and swamp witch potions designed to speed up his recovery. He’d already been trained on what this stuff did, so he just tore off the top and chugged the whole thing down.

Arya walked over. “Petra did something,” she said. “One of the Visentis boys told us.”

“What did she do?” I asked, once again feeling the cold grip of fear, its icy fingers tightening around my throat, squeezing and cutting off my air supply.

“She had Moore attack Esme. Then Esme rushed back to the western tower, saying Petra wasn’t here to help us at all,” Arya explained. “That’s all the boys could tell me, but they were worried about Esme, so I mobilized the Seniors at once. A couple of them confirmed suspicious activity in the north tower, and they had also spotted Derek, Sofia and Esme running in there. Petra must’ve set herself loose, somehow, and found Kalon.”

The Reapers and I looked at one another. Less than a second later, we were all running with Arya, the north tower rapidly rising ahead. By the time we reached its main entrance, the first signs of trouble emerged. Derek and Sofia held the Seniors back, urging everyone to keep their distance.

“We don’t know what she’s capable of, and we—as living creatures—can’t do anything against her,” Derek said. “Lumi and Esme and Time are up there. Hopefully, they’ll be able to get her out.”

“Get her out from where?” I asked.

“Kalon’s room,” he replied, his voice strained. “She got to him.”

“Let us help!” Mira insisted.

“You can’t,” Sofia replied. “I wish you could, but you can’t. Petra is capable of killing any of you. We can’t lose any more people. Besides, she’s sealed herself in the room with Kalon’s interdimensional pocket. No one has been able to get through so far, not even Time.”

“What the hell happened?!” Kailani blurted. She quickly checked Sofia’s healing bruises, then Derek’s. “You two look like crap.”

“Petra. Petra happened,” Derek said, and gave us a brief rundown of the events leading up to this moment, including