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126 pages

English

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Where does Death dwell?It's the question of the century. Perhaps even the millennium. Because the Hermessi are growing dangerously close to completing their catastrophic ritual, and if Death can't stop them, no one will.GASP has heard she's holed herself up on a far-flung planet called Mortis, but finding it - and her - will prove to be only the first challenge in gaining her favor, as Taeral and his team will soon discover...

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Publié par	Distributed by eBookpartnership
Date de parution	01 juillet 2022
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781796217650
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

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Copyright © 2019
Hot Pancakes Ltd
www.hotpcakes.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
MAINCAST LI T
Amelia (daughter of Erik and Abby Novalik - vampire)
Eva (daughter of Azazel and Tamara - druid/lamia/vampire)
Herakles (creation of Ta’Zan - Faulty)
Raphael (creation of Ta’Zan - Perfect)
Riza (daughter of Horatio and Aisha Drizan- jinni)
Taeral (son of Sherus and Nuriya - fae-jinni)
Varga (son of Ashbik and Ruby Goode - vampire-sentry)
TAERAL
W e were lost. Literally lost somewhere in the In-Between.
After our bloody encounter with a rogue Reaper named Yamani-and after wrapping our heads around the fact that Reapers exist to begin with-we’d managed to get off Hellym by jumping back through the pink waters. Another Reaper had saved us, not only from psycho Yamani, but also from the Hermessi’s Titan, as Amelia had called it. A humongous, golem-type creature made of hot stone, lava, and fire that had been forged specifically to crush us.
Hellym’s Water Hermessi had died millions of years ago, having wiped out an entire population of Druids and fae in the process, but the other elementals had remained dormant until the Blackout. The Devil’s Weed we carried around at all times made us more difficult for the Hermessi to detect, but not impossible-especially since Yamani had sold us out to them in a desperate bid to catch and kill us. We’d been a means to an end for that maniac. He’d wanted to quit being a Reaper by turning into a ghoul. As it turned out, that required eating a soul, and Yamani had set his sights on the five members of my crew, myself included.
The Hermessi’s power grew stronger every day, as their influence spread through an increasing number of fae. That had allowed Hellym’s Hermessi to conjure up an elemental behemoth which Amelia had referred to as a Titan, along with extremely dangerous fire attacks, all created to destroy us. In addition, Yamani’s circle spell had also stopped us from teleporting away from them and Yamani-until the second Reaper’s intervention. That stranger had killed Yamani and had given us the window we needed to get out of that bloody mess. Left without our gear, our weapons, and our earpieces, we had no choice but to slip back through the pink water, hoping it would get us back to Calliope and Mount Agrith.
To our surprise, it didn’t. We were somewhere else entirely. And we had no idea where.
“I see forest, for the most part. Though it’s weird I’m seeing so much, given it’s still night time,” Raphael muttered, looking around. His peculiar eyes, one blue and one green, surveyed our surroundings, while the rest of us got our bearings. We’d managed to retain our Telluris connection to Viola, as well as Varga and his crew, so we weren’t completely in the dark.
“At least nothing is jumping out to kill us, for the time being,” Amelia replied.
We’d been here for about four hours, beneath a starry night sky with a bright, full moon, trying to figure out what to do next. It was so bright and peculiar, in fact, that it made this place look exceptionally clear. Yes, we couldn’t see anything but forest around us, but the moonlight was so strange and intense, that we had a great sense of color and contrast, as if it was still daylight. Raphael was right. This was weird. A good kind of weird, because we had enhanced visibility. Amelia had given Phoenix every single detail she could see, anything that might help Phoenix figure out where we were. But Amelia was right. At least it was quiet, giving us some time to simply settle down and recover.
The pink water had healed my wounds, as well as Raphael’s. The cuts had closed, and there weren’t even scars left behind. The primordial fluid had been quite the game changer-though, in all fairness, we deserved all the lucky breaks we could get.
“Well, without any spell paraphernalia, I can’t get us out of here. That much is clear,” Lumi said. She got up, joining Raphael in his study of the area. “And I doubt Phoenix will find our location anytime soon. There is so much moonlight, though, it’s incredible.”
“What should we do?” Eira asked.
We’d settled on the top of the cliff that sheltered the pink water through which we’d come. We had a fresh supply of Devil’s Weed in our pockets-sprigs plucked from the edges of the pond. And there was time to kill…
Varga, Eva, Fallon, Riza, and Herakles were on their way back from Nevertide. They had a location for Death, thanks to Kabbah, Nevertide’s Earth Hermessi and one of the oldest elementals in existence. We knew he wouldn’t give us more than he’d already given us, but I held on to the hope that he’d come through, eventually. He’d chosen neutrality because Brendel, the lead Hermessi working toward completion of the ritual, had kidnapped his daughter, along with hundreds of other Hermessi children. This, in itself, was a bitter reminder that the elementals had lied to us (and to one another) about a few things, including the fact that most of them had sired children, even though they’d said they didn’t have any offspring and even though they’d been mostly dormant since the first ritual attempt.
That, to me, meant that I’d have to take anything the Hermessi said with a grain of salt.
Harper was out cold-quite literally, her body temperature dropping while her spirit was out with Ramin. We didn’t know where they were or what had happened to them, but we were aware that she’d been down for far too long. Her connection with Ramin was special and unique, and it had allowed her to soul-walk and hide inside him. She’d seen and heard the rebel Hermessi, though, at this point we weren’t sure how many were still working against the ritual, since Brendel had taken their children hostage.
Firr, the Fire Hermessi of Calliope, definitely wasn’t on our side anymore, as he’d destroyed Mount Agrith on behalf of the ritual supporters, cutting off our access to its pink waters. The Daughters of Eritopia were understandably devastated, but, since their maker, Wei, wasn’t going to fight his own Hermessi brothers over this, they didn’t have any choice but to find another home. We did wonder whether the crystal eggs with unhatched Daughters had also been destroyed in the process, but the Daughters didn’t know-they did, however, doubt that that had happened. We couldn’t know for sure unless we spoke to Wei directly. Such an endeavor would have to wait, however. The Daughters needed a new home, and Draven and Serena had offered them pretty much any mountain on Calliope, provided the locals agreed, too.
But that was the least of our problems. GASP could no longer interrogate the cult members they’d captured. The Hermessi had grown strong enough to hijack their bodies, forcing our agents to put them into magically induced comas so they’d no longer suffer. If left awake, the prisoners experienced excruciating pain in their hands, which the witches had covered in protective crystal casings to stop them from using their fae abilities against GASP. On top of that, the Hermessi weren’t recruiting just fae anymore. No, there were reports of Imen, Bajangs, Imps, succubi, incubi, manticores, and many other species across the In-Between and the Supernatural Dimension joining the Hermessi death cults.
That helped the elementals with their supreme goal-infecting five million fae with their influence in order to complete the ritual that would bring about the end of days. We were currently at 3.5 million fae. Despite our quarantine and protective measures, GASP had yet to stop the number from going higher. Every day, dozens more fae were brought into the sanctuaries and sheltered in crystal casings, while the rest of the world suffered, knowing that nature itself no longer wanted us to exist. The ritual was abnormal and illogical, but the Hermessi had gotten it into their heads that it was time to try again, especially since Death had stopped their previous attempt.
All we could do was keep fighting, resist their influence, and find Death, so she would stop them. There were questions as to why she hadn’t intervened yet, but I had a feeling only she could tell us the reason. Needless to say, I was a mass of pins and needles at this point, trying to find the right direction in the midst of pure chaos.
But Eira had asked the right question: What would we do, now?
“We can’t sit here much longer,” I eventually said. Around us, millions of aspen and bamboo-like trees covered hundreds and hundreds of miles. I took a moment to properly analyze this stunning, eerily quiet view.
A sea of green stretched out, seemingly forever. The wind blew gently through the trees, and the sound of leaves rustling and birds singing had given me a mild sense of comfort over the past four hours. Sprinkled across the landscape were roaring waterfalls that tumbled down from stony peaks and hundred-mile-wide plateaus that grew into mountains farther out. Slim rivers snaked through the woods, revealing their blue waters here and there in crude green and flowery clearings where animals stopped to drink. I didn’t have Varga’s True Sight, but the view was remarkably clear and breathtaking. To the west, grandiose keys and wooded crevices crept through the forests, leaving room for rivers to meet and flow thicker into the horizon.
“Varga and his team are back on Calliope now, but they can’t stay there for much longer,” Lumi replied, looking at me. “Even with the Devil’s Weed on them, they’re still a target for the Hermessi, much like us.”
“I would’ve wanted us to find the Nekronos system together.” I sighed, shaking my head slowly. But, with every hour that passed, I began to consider the possibility that we might not make it back in time to regroup with Varga and get to Mortis, where Death supposedly dwelle