Chapter 69: 'Thy bonds in blood...'

Chapter Sixty-Nine: ‘Thy bonds in blood...’

With the helium tank in hand, Zeff entered the center courtyard where the rest of his family was waiting for him. They all stood together on the small bridge over the pool as rain continued to fall, filling in the silence with a kind of pattering static. His wife held Emiliana’s hand, who just looked pale as Zeff drew close. The other children stood nearby, but there was no one else around, as he had dismissed all of the family’s attendants for the remainder of the evening. Excepting, of course, the four reapers who were also present.

For Zeff, the reapers took on the appearance of overlarge bats--as big as hyenas and with similar faces but also bearing wings and glowing white eyes. They had a curious habit of hanging upside down just as normal bats might, only these ones didn’t need to hang from anything, so they simply floated there in midair.

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