“Then explain. How does a Reaper become a ghoul without consuming a living soul, when that is the very trigger that creates the ghoul in the first place?” I replied.
“Perhaps we should begin with some names,” my husband suggested, in a gentle bid to diffuse the tension that had gripped everyone present. No, I wasn’t supposed to be here, but they weren’t supposed to exist. There were questions that needed answering, and a hostile environment was not the best way to achieve that. “I’m Tristan, a vampire of The Shade.”
“A living creature! I might rip your heart out, just for kicks!” the scarred one spat, narrowing his black eyes at Tristan’s hand, then mine. “Are those wedding bands I see?”
“Yes. We are married,” I said, noticing the sudden shifts in the ghoul’s demeanor, jumping from agitated and bloodthirsty to calm and eloquent with incredible speed. “The union was blessed by Death herself.”
“Of course,” another ghoul grumbled. “Anything for her precious Reaper.”
“Odd. But I suppose we’ve all seen odder things come to pass,” the scarred one replied. “I’m Eneas. Once Reaper of the Fire Star. Now Ghoul Reaper of Biriane. That’s the best we’ve been able to come up with.”
“I’m Fileas,” the second one said, proceeding to introduce the others, too. “That’s Malin, Deas, Hadras, and Filicore. We’re all brothers in life and in death. Careful with Hadras, in particular. He likes to get rough.”
To prove that point, Hadras snapped his fangs at us, chuckling maniacally. The others were amused for a second, but they didn’t stick to one emotional state for too long. Tristan sucked in a breath, trying to ignore their outburst. “I thought I was losing my mind for a second. You all look so much alike. Did you die together, too?”
They nodded at once. “A terrible flood, eons ago,” Eneas said. “We died so our people might live. And look at us now. Worthless!” he snarled, then shook his head as if to push that rage back to the bottom of his consciousness.
“You sacrificed yourselves. Perhaps it’s why you were selected to become Reapers in the first place. Someone high up saw your strength and nobility,” I replied. “But I’m still not clear as to how you came to be… this.” I gestured at their eyes.
Around us, the afternoon began to settle slowly into shades of red. Plumes of purple and orange stretched across the sky, the huge sun melting into the western horizon with a heavy glow. The winds intensified, raising threads of white dust and swirling them through the alleys to the south. Once in a while, the particles flickered white, like diamond specks dancing in the breeze.
The whiteness of this city and the blackness of the Ghoul Reapers’ eyes had the same loneliness in common. They had been forgotten. Left here to exist without anyone’s knowledge but Death’s—and Anunit’s. Now mine and Tristan’s, too.
Eneas didn’t put his scythe away, and neither did his brothers, but I did notice a softening of his tone as he spoke. “What do you know about this place? About us? Someone clearly pointed you in this direction. Was it Death?”
“No,” I said. “Anunit.”
Filicore growled. It was in that sound that I recognized the primal bestiality of a ghoul. It sent shivers down my back. “She should have kept her mouth shut. We are all sworn to secrecy.”
“About the World Crusher?” I asked, drawing alarmed glances. “I’m told she is the true first Reaper.”
“She is,” Eneas replied.
“And she’s being held here,” I continued.
He nodded.
“You all serve to keep her safe?” Tristan asked.
“No, we serve to make sure she never gets out. At least that’s what we were told,” Eneas shot back. “Death summoned us ten million years ago. She said we had a great mission ahead. That the entire universe would thank us for our work. Little did we know…”
He sounded disappointed, even upset, by this predicament. I couldn’t blame him, considering what he’d been turned into. “Sorry to ask again, but how did you devolve into Ghoul Reapers?”
Eneas took a deep breath, gazing out into the incandescent sunset for a short while, just as the glowing orange disk dipped low and left a rippling mass of warm colors in its wake. “We came here as Reapers,” he said. “And we were honored to undertake this mission. The six of us, heroes of our realm, were chosen to keep the World Crusher bound, to stop her from breaking out. It wasn’t until much later that we learned the truth.”
“The World Crusher would never be able to break out of the sigil spell on her own,” Fileas continued, sitting on one of the temple’s steps. The others seemed to relax as well, though none put their weapons away. “We were brought here to keep her rage from infecting this world. Imagine being locked inside a damn book for so long, unable to move, unable to leave, unable to do anything other than brood and contemplate an eternity in absolute misery.”
“Her rage…” I murmured, remembering my situation on Visio. It rang a painful bell.
“Yes. The World Crusher has been like this since before you were made,” Malin added, giving me a bitter smile. “That look on your face tells me you know a little bit about what it’s like.”
I told them about my time on Visio and how I was able to break free. They listened, hanging on every word with childlike interest. In the end, these creatures understood exactly what I had been through. As it turned out, they shared a similar plight.
“Death bound us to Biriane,” Filicore said. “She wanted to make sure we wouldn’t abandon our posts. Granted, we weren’t deprived of ourselves or our powers, but we’ve been stuck here for ten million years. You know what that’s like after your imprisonment on Visio.”
“I do, and I’m sorry,” I replied.
“So, the World Crusher’s rage seeped out through the book in which she was sealed,” Tristan
