I'm pretty sure we're all thinking the same damn thing at this point. Rhyland gave that pretentious prick a one-way ticket to the great beyond before his little field trip to the Thunderdome. But with our luck? I wouldn't be surprised if the bastard found a way to weasel out of eternal damnation just to fuck with us some more.
"Your guess is as good as mine," Emily sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose like she's trying to stave off a migraine. "Braxos, care to shed some light on how the wholeShadow Realm schtick works? What's the deal with souls being able to hop dimensions like it's no big thing?"
"I must admit, I'm rather curious about that myself," Seraphina chimes in, her angelic face scrunched up in thought. "I've pored over the Book of Shadows more times than I can count, but the specifics of soul mechanics have always been a bit... vague."
I lean back in my chair, nursing my whiskey like it keeps me sane. Which, let's be honest, it probably is. "Alright, big guy," I drawl, gesturing to Braxos with my glass. "Lay it on us. Give us the 411 on this whole 'souls playing hopscotch through the cosmos' situation."
Braxos, still wearing his shiny new skin like he's auditioning for America's Next Top Demon, clears his throat. "The Shadow Realm is a complex tapestry of energies and dimensions," he begins, his voice taking on a lecturing tone that reminds me way too much of my least favorite college professor. "Souls are not bound by the same physical constraints as their mortal vessels, and as such, they can traverse the various planes of existence with relative ease."
I blink, trying to process the word vomit that just spewed from his mouth. "In English, please? Some of us didn't major in Metaphysical Bullshit."
Braxos shoots me a look that's half exasperation, half barely-contained lust for Emily. Gross. "In layman's terms," he says, each word oozing with condescension, "souls can move between dimensions if the conditions are right. And with the power of the Soul Stone, those conditions become much more... flexible."
Fuck. So not only do we have to worry about Lilith playing puppet master with vampire souls, but she's got a magical MacGuffin that basically gives her a free pass to yank whoever she wants out of the afterlife.
I'm starting to think we need to invest in some cosmic restraining order against this bitch. Like, "Lilith, by order of the universe, you are hereby forbidden from fucking with the natural order of things. Violators will be subject to eternal damnation and/or aggressive bitch-slapping by yours truly."
But knowing our luck, she'd probably wipe her ass with it and keep right on wreaking havoc.
"There is another matter you should understand," Braxos states, his tone carrying the weight of ancient knowledge despite his model appearance. "The souls claimed by the stone are delivered directly to Lord Moretemis in Unbra, like tributes to the Dark God. Each one consumed adds to his terrible might. The stone was never intended to draw souls back from his realm, but with sufficient power and knowledge, one could reverse its purpose."
"So, what happens to the soul once it's punched its ticket back from the Shadow Realm?" Emily leans forward, her eyes sparking with that dangerous curiosity that usually leads to trouble. "Is it just, like, a spooky ghost, floating around all invisible and shit?"
"No, Mistress," Braxos responds with that formal, old-world precision that makes him sound like he stepped out of a Shakespeare play. "Upon breaching the veil of Unbra, souls regain their corporeal form."
I lean forward, trying to wrap my head around this mindfuck. "Let me get this straight," I say, pinching the bridge of my nose. "Thanks to the power of bullshit magic, said soul is just walking around, business as usual, in the body it wore before getting ganked?"
Braxos inclines his head, a simple gesture that somehow manages to convey a metric fuckton of gravitas. "In essence, yes. Once returned, the soul can reclaim its physical vessel to walk the earth as before its demise."
"So then, when a soul goes to Unbra, they aren't...really dead?" Sable asks, her chocolate eyes wide with innocent wonder. She's twisting a strand of pink hair around her finger like she always does when her brain's working overtime. "I mean, I always thought death was so... final."
"The mortal concept of 'death' is but a primitive approximation of a far more complex transition," Braxos intones, his stolen model face attempting solemnity. "Souls are cosmic currency, harvested and categorized according to their essence in the great collection chambers of Unbra. They are meant to remain there for eternity, feeding the darkness." He raises those perfectly sculpted eyebrows in what I assume is supposed to be ominous foreshadowing. "Until that balance was... just disrupted."
Great. Because supernatural soul trafficking wasn't complicated enough. Now we've got interdimensional jailbreaks to deal with.
"So what you're saying is Moretemis basically runs some kind of twisted soul filing system?" Emily cuts in, rolling her eyes. "Like, 'Oh, here's another dead human! Let me just catalog you under 'H' for 'Had it coming' and stick you on my soul shelf’? That's seriously how the afterlife works?"
Ten bucks says she's already planning some half-baked magical experiment that'll either save us all or blow up the mansion.
"Your mortal metaphor, while crude, holds elements of truth. The Great Shadow's methods are beyond mortal comprehension, but—"
I take a long pull from my whiskey bottle, watching this supernatural TED talk unfold. Between Sable's earnest curiosity, Emily's barely-contained magical mad scientist vibe, and our resident demon trying to explain the afterlife like it's a cosmic library system, I'm starting to think we should sell tickets to this shit show.
Maybe we could call it 'Souls, Sorcery, and Sarcasm: A Night with the Supernatural Misfits.' We'd make a killing.
Danica
32
Myboots crunch into snow that sparkles like scattered diamonds, my breath creating little clouds that dance away on the arctic wind. Even through my fur-lined coat—which is seriously the coziest thing ever—the cold tries to bite through to my bones. Thank god for my internal supernatural space heater, or I'd be frozen solid right about now.
Gullfax wasn't exaggerating when he said this was the end of the line. The winds raging ahead look like they could turn our majestic flying steed into a very bewildered golden tumbleweed. But holy shit, nothing could have prepared me for the nightmare wonderland that is Valhalla's Veil.
Gigantic bones bleached white as moonlight, jut from the frozen ground like ancient markers. The fog is impossibly thick, swirling around crumbling ruins that might have been magnificent once upon a time. And then there's the cave—this giant, gaping maw in the mountainside that looks ready to swallow souls whole.
"What in the actual hell happened here?" I breathe, unable to tear my eyes away from the macabre display.
Bryn materializes beside me like some gorgeous gothic angel, her obsidian wings folded against her back. "This, sister, is where the greatest of our kind take their final rest—gods and warriors of old." Her mismatched eyes scan the bone-littered landscape with reverence tinged with caution. "Sacred ground, but don't let the ghosts fool you into thinking they're all that walks here. Quick now—we need shelter before the Hræsvelgr spot us. Those eagle giants have a nasty habit of turning travelers into their evening snack."
