A Shade of Vampire 82 A Circle of Nine - Bella Forrest Page 0,65

had the audacity to declare, even as his hand shook on the scythe he’d taken from a fallen Reaper.

The Widow Maker dashed forward and ran his blade through the Darkling’s torso, effortlessly slicing flesh and bone. I heard a woman scream. A gasp. And we were only just beginning. Widow continued his carnage, mercilessly cutting Darklings down. The spirits evaporated from their bodies and turned to weightless ashes.

“What’s happening?” I asked Phantom, who was about to take on a dozen Darklings herself. She gave me a cold grin.

“What do you think happens when a First Tenner kills a living creature?” she replied. “May the universe forgive us for what we’re doing, but there is no other way.”

“Their souls are destroyed,” Kelara clarified. “Whenever a First Tenner’s blade cuts to kill, it doesn’t just terminate the body. It terminates the soul, as well. Death gave this gift to the First Tenners, but she did not share it with the rest of us, since she didn’t want to disrupt the balance between the living and the dead. When the First Tenners go for the soul’s death, it’s considered the ultimate punishment. It’s not something the rest of us are supposed to be able to do. She didn’t trust the whole Reaperhood not to abuse such an ability.”

The idea made my skin crawl, but I agreed with Phantom. These people had fed souls to ghouls for too long, messing with the cosmic balance. Death would’ve been the easy way out for them. Nothingness was the most terrible fate a soul could encounter.

We spread out and cut through the swelling crowd of Darklings. I mercilessly slashed at them with my scythe, allowing Rudolph to feed on their souls. That was a slightly different kind of nothingness, but a void nonetheless awaiting those wretched, corrupted spirits.

Kelara pierced through one flank, and when the Darklings’ gargoyles began their bloody offensive, Phantom and Soul brought their scythes down and broke their rune chains, freeing the creatures.

“You have an option,” Soul said to the ghouls. “You’re either with us or against us. And you know what you get if you’re against us!”

The Darklings’ mood seemed to shift from determination to panic as they realized the ghouls’ allegiance was about to change. It turned into a bloodbath mere seconds later, as the creatures finally had the opportunity to avenge their own spiritual demise. These were all Reapers who’d been forced to transform into ghouls. They’d been torn from their noble existence and degraded into soul- and flesh-eating monsters. Naturally, they had a bone to pick with their makers.

Morning splashed more strokes of light across the buildings as we advanced through the main street. We left dozens of corpses behind us, drawing our own ghouls from the side alleys. I could only hope the civilians had found shelter by now, because they definitely didn’t want to cross paths with ghouls that had just caught the scent of corpses.

Our ghouls spilled into the main street and mingled with the others. Some went past us and dove right into the pile of corpses, causing bloodied entrails and limbs to fly around as they feasted. Most, however, joined the ghouls we’d just released from their masters and ran down the street, chasing after the fleeing Darklings.

No matter how hard they fought or what death magic tricks they had up their sleeves, the Darklings simply didn’t have enough time to resist in any way. We’d organized one hell of an offensive, and the First Tenners were going all out. I sure as hell never wanted to find myself fighting any of Death’s first creations. They were fast and cruel. They didn’t hesitate to kill. And their consciences were minimal, at best. They were Death’s perfect soldiers.

Morning and Night worked together, confusing the Darklings they targeted. Night blinded them with pure darkness, while Morning cut them down, her scythe leaving liquid light pouring from their deadly wounds.

Soul opened small interdimensional pockets along the way, and Widow pushed incoming Darklings in. With a single snap of his fingers, Soul closed each of the pockets, crushing the Darklings inside and leaving their souls to linger between dimensions. I imagined that fate was just as bad as getting eaten by a ghoul.

Phantom only had to touch the Darklings’ foreheads. She was too fast, moving like a shadow so they couldn’t protect themselves against her. As soon as their bodies hit the ground, she stomped her foot, and the dirt rippled outward. The wave hit the fallen Darklings, and