A Shade of Vampire 79 A Game of Death - Bella Forrest Page 0,86

once we were alone again. He didn’t give me any kind of response, focusing solely on the last pieces of meat that had been dumped on the stone floor for him.

I kept to the corner, not wanting him to think I planned to get between him and his food. I’d noticed that his behavior became more feral whenever sustenance was involved. There were some things he just couldn’t control—though, I had to give him credit for being in much better shape than his brethren.

Dina was virtually unrecognizable, and Bert had been curled up in a fetal position, crying and bawling and howling, the last time I’d seen him. The others on his team were even worse, no longer interested in anything other than eating me the first chance they got. Rudolph, despite his silent suffering, was a miracle.

After he was done eating, he seemed to soften a little, sitting down with his long legs crossed. The collar bit into his translucent skin, and he occasionally fiddled with it in order to reduce some of the physical discomfort it caused him. His breathing was heavy and irregular, some bones still changing inside him. The occasional cracking sound coming out of his ribcage and thighs made me squirm.

“I don’t know why Zoltan isn’t putting Seeley through the same motions as he did you yet, but I’m pretty sure he will, eventually,” I said after a long silence. “We need to figure out a way to set him free, Rudolph, so that no one else has to suffer like you and your friends… not to mention all the other Reapers who came before you.”

He looked at me, and there was sadness in his eyes. The kind that made me want to cry.

“Do you think you can behave like a good ghoul when Zoltan comes around?” I asked. “I mean, as much as I hate the idea, he will give you a fresh soul to eat, at least… the monster. Surely, that sounds good?”

Rudolph nodded once, his gaze dropping, loaded with pure shame.

“It’s okay,” I said. “It’s in your nature now. I know it can’t be easy, but sustenance is actually good for you. It’ll keep you calm and focused. And you’re doing a great job so far, Rudolph. Not once have you tried to eat me.”

He sneered, revealing his white fangs. It sent chills running through me, until I realized that it was his attempt at a smirk. There was no aggression in that expression, only the frightening visage of a beast lost between the world of the living and that of the dead.

“There has to be a way for us to get Seeley out, right?” I asked.

Rudolph nodded again and showed me his bare hands. When I frowned, not yet realizing what he was trying to tell me, he scratched a half-moon into the floor with his claw. It took quite the effort for him to use his hand like that, but I got it.

“It looks like a scythe. It’s a scythe?” I replied, and he sneered again, creeping me out some more. But I was too energized to spend much time dwelling on such emotions, especially since Rudolph had just offered a solution. “We can use a scythe to set Seeley free?”

He pointed at his iron collar, trying to scratch the carved runes off. It didn’t work, of course. However, the blade of a scythe could do what his claws couldn’t.

“A Reaper’s weapon can break sigils and runes and stuff like that, right?”

He nodded once more, becoming increasingly restless. We were on to something here.

“We need to get a scythe, then. Maybe, once you earn the trust of these people, you can snatch one and use it? I mean, I would do it myself,” I chuckled nervously, “but I’m a bit useless when it comes to picking stuff off the living.”

Rudolph thought about it for a moment, huffing from a sudden bout of pain as another bone moved inside him. His transformation was almost complete, his limbs and fingers much longer. His face was deformed, and there was barely any semblance of his Reaper form left. I worried deep down that this whole thing might culminate with him eventually losing his mind and becoming a predatory beast like the others.

For as long as I had him, however, he was incredibly useful.

He showed me his hand, which he pressed against the scratched half-moon. He then lifted his hand and turned it over, revealing his palm and reaching out, as if to give