A Shade of Vampire 81 A Bringer of Night - Bella Forrest Page 0,100

You left behind these moments. You didn’t go down without a fight,” I said. “Now let me release you. Death needs her First Tenners back.”

Silence settled over the crater. Ben’s body was still, growing colder with every minute that passed. His spirit, however, was moving, wandering around in a haze, trying to figure out what he was… what had happened. All spirits were like that at first.

“Where’s the Spirit Bender?” Night asked. “I need to make him pay.”

“Oh, someone beat you to it, I’m afraid. Can we get out of here, please?”

A sigh brushed past me. Morning squeezed my hand.

I sucked in a breath, wheezing as though I’d been under water this whole time. The bright light that had drawn me to the fifth Beta element exploded from me. It turned everything white.

For a moment, there was nothing but a vast, pristine emptiness.

“Thank you,” Night whispered. I’d heard this before. From his sister. But the toll on my being was becoming too much. I felt stretched thin, like a canvas pulled in different directions. I was being torn apart.

When I came to, Soul had me in his arms.

No one said a word. Phantom and Widow were watching me, waiting for me to say something. Next to them, Morning and Night stood together, chromatic opposites of one another. She was bright and curly and all smiles. He was dark and sullen and sad. But he was here. He was back.

The Night Bringer was free.

“Took you long enough,” I muttered, my whole body aching—which was weird, since I didn’t really have a body. Then again, breaking a Beta element could make any Reaper feel like he was still alive, and not in a good way.

“I could say the same about you,” Night replied.

“You’ve been out for hours,” Soul said. “Snoring the hell out of those Zs.”

I glanced up at him, thankful to see his face. “Well, at least I’m still kicking.”

“Don’t be a meanie,” Morning replied, beaming like the sun. “She was tired. She needed to rest.”

“Oh, man,” I grunted as Soul helped me up. “This had all better be worth it.”

The lead in my knees was gone. I was still exhausted, but I felt more like myself than ever. Night was out, and his agony no longer tormented me. I could breathe again.

“We need to go to Visio,” the Night Bringer said. “While I’d like nothing more than to kick back and celebrate my release, we have more work to do.”

“Visio?” I asked. “Why there?”

“Unending is there,” the Night Bringer replied. “The moment I caught a whiff of Prometheus and his people, I knew. I knew the Spirit Bender did his worst to Unending—not me or my sister or anyone else.”

I knew I was staring at him, but I couldn’t help myself, considering the bombshell he’d just dropped. Well, he was also drop-dead gorgeous, appearing as a surly young man with dark hair and full lips in a permanent pout. “You’re telling me the Unending has been on Visio this whole time?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Holy crap.

“Silver lining? You get to pal around with Seeley again,” Soul interjected, slightly amused. There he was. The jerk. The ruthless psychopath. He was back, and for some ridiculous reason, I was glad to see him again.

I’d need him and all the other First Tenners at their worst for what was ahead. If Unending was on Visio, that meant the planet was even more problematic than we’d first assumed. But at least the road led us somewhere. We were one step closer to undoing all the evil the Spirit Bender had unleashed upon the universe.

Derek

We met with the Faulty twins and Ansel close to a busy market, where we knew the guards would have trouble spotting us, then took shelter in an abandoned house on the south side of the imperial city. Surrounded by dilapidated buildings and rundown villas, the place was virtually empty. There wasn’t a single soul around, and we took turns standing guard by the window to make sure the gold and silver guards wouldn’t find us.

“This is a whole new level of trouble we’ve gotten ourselves into,” Amal mumbled, sitting on the floor. We’d lit a small oil lamp, enough to give us a little light. The window curtains, while old and tired and loaded with dust, were thick enough to obscure the view inside.

Tristan kept watch and Valaine sat next to him, resting her head on his shoulder. I felt sorry for her. She’d been nothing but kind and helpful and gracious.