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Sandman

Garlic-scented cologne doesn’t repel billionaires.

And for that matter, Siri isn’t the pinnacle of monster-hunting expertise.

“Siri? Other than stakes and crosses, what’s the best vampire repellent?”

Looking back on his choice of topic, I should have immediately known who he was set on pestering.

Suffice to say, ignorance is not always bliss.

The obnoxious light refracting against the mirrors lining the Tower of Babel didn’t curb said ignorance either.
An ominous, haunting toll echoed through the tower as the belief-imbued timepiece atop the structure clanged.
I loathed that.

Whatever higher power decided that a being trapped in a disrepaired tower amidst a ‘timeless’ region of the Nether had to withstand a clock every other hour deserved to take a long walk off a short pier.

The teenager languishing behind me sighed. “...Your signal sucks.”

I snorted as the halfling frantically tapped against his small glass rectangle. If he tapped it any more desperately, it would crack into a thousand pieces, and I shuddered to think my tower, which had been devoid of a broom for the last six hundred years, would likely be sugar-coated in the paper-thin shards.

“If you’re expecting an apology for my lack of wifi, you will be sorely disappointed.”

“The rest of this place being a splotched internet no-man’s land aside? You should really jump on the wireless bandwagon. It’s perfect for someone who already stares at a bunch of screens all day.”

“They’re scrying mirrors.” I turned from the assortment of ectoplasm-enchanted mirrors and brass dishes to stare at the younger. My body cracked and shifted to leave me as withered as a sun-baked date. Forty years had sapped me of vitality in all but an instant. It was painful and not without a few odd snapping noises. “It’s a duty, not a want, Revenant.”

Teal eyes met mine. “But the internet is like the best thing since sliced bread!”

I never really understood that phrase.
Bread is bread, and it takes ten seconds to find a knife to slice it yourself.

“Why are you so curious about vampire repellents? Have you stumbled across one outside of the vampiric council?”

The sixteen-year-old’s eyes widened comically. “The what?”

My flesh compacted and cracked. Bones blistered up to tug against the confines of loosening and then taut flesh, leaving me a child in shimmering lilac and faded blue attire.

One tended to do that when part of their soul was used to calcify a demonic king in layers of limestone.

I hooked my finger against the decorative shawl weighing my shoulders and glanced not at Kronos, the leather artifact on my left wrist, but at the tattered jute band on my right.

A small knotted strip of preserved linen swayed against the other memorial tomes, and for a moment, I reminisced the loss of its owner.

It was foolish of me to assume Daniel had any knowledge or learned experience regarding vampires.

I sighed.

“A rather pleasant group of cursed paranormals, headed by the Book of Blood’s keeper. I haven’t met them, but I hear they’re rather ‘dapper,’ as the youths say.”

Glowing fog-gray flesh gained a sickly neon green undertone. Daniel blanched, “Vampires are a thing in the Nether?”

My eyes rolled as I turned to peer at the currently far taller paranormal. “Why were you looking up how to repel them if you don’t even believe in them?”

For a moment, the unrealized embassary almost looked sheepish. “It’s for a project.”

I raised a brow, unconvinced.
Daniel Stroud had a horrendous poker face.

“Uh huh. Well, I highly recommend not using any form of vampiric repellant on a council member. They’re not demonic.”

Thankfully, he was quick to learn. I couldn’t ask for a more attentive and astute student, even if he was prone to jumping to conclusions.

The teen flinched. “Right. Um, I still haven’t really come across any demons outside of Slaugh.”

“Then count yourself blessed.” My flesh rippled, and with it, my short skirt from early childhood warped to be accompanied by a pair of well-worn trousers. Now an adult, I turned to the screens to thumb over my bracelet in an act of self-soothing, lingering over the black and white charms and a tuft of spotted fur near its center.

Daniel floated to be upside down, glowing teal blue suit and vibrant neon green freckles giving him the appearance of bioluminescent algae churning above a stilled sea. He grumbled above me, “Blessed or maybe ignorant. How am I supposed to even know what a demon looks like? Are horns and forked tails a thing?”

I chuckled tiredly. “Sometimes.” Then I closed my eyes and took a shaky breath, “A demon is a complicated beast; a soul with only one volition.”

“Scaring the pants off of horror movie nuts and converting religious fanatics?”

I smiled wryly. “That’s two incorrect guesses.”

“My bad.” He pocketed his phone. “So what’s this big bad volition?”

“Why, to consume life, of course.”

Daniel slowly landed in front of me, silvery white hair floating and swaying as if under a nonexistent stream. “How?”

“They have various methods and preferred victims. Some attack with no real rhyme or reason, while others can wait for decades beside their chosen victim before finally sinking in to retrieve their prize. Demons lust after existence and dig their fangs into the souls of the living and the relinquished in a bid to fuel what they refuse to renounce. They aren’t anchored by love or growth, Daniel, only want.”

My shoulders sagged with an unseen weight. “In that regard, you have met several demons. Slaugh, of course, but also his deranged herald Terivingi who was followed shortly after by your Pariah.”

The teen flinched at the mention of the warped poltergeist and rubbed the back of his neck a tad sheepishly. “The guy I’m trying to repel doesn’t quite fit into that genre of spooky.”

I snorted. “And I’ll be the first to remind you that fangs don’t make you a vampire. Otherwise, you’d be chatting with one.” My lip pulled up to hint at a long canine.

Gloved hands crossed petulantly, and ‘The Revenant’ grumbled something illegible under his breath in retort.

My eyes rolled, and I swept closer to my problematic viewing screen.

A lilac woman in a frilly pink gown fell from the Nether through a spawned portal toward a large sandy dune in the Sahara desert. I sighed and lifted my left hand in preparation for the grab.

Kronos liquified and reformed as a scythe in my hold. I pointed it towards the scrying mirrors, unminding Daniel’s frozen state behind me. The blade sliced through space and time to summon that distant core through the living’s plane and back into the Nether. With a weary smile, I resealed the temporary portal and pulled back my arm.

Kronos dulled, and the ornate blade at its end folded inward, leaving it a simple knotted walking staff. Time resumed, as it always did, for no being could hold it indefinitely.

She fell, spiraling to land in a large purple bush on one of Paradiso’s many spectral islands.

Daniel was still grumbling behind me.

I chuckled, “What was that, Daniel?”

“I was lamenting how annoying it is to be randomly paused and played like a VHS tape. One moment, you’re standing there, and the next, you have a scythe towering over the screens.”

“Be thankful that I’m not the mischievous sort, or you could have ended up with a mustache, courtesy of that supposed ‘magic marker’ in your backpack.”

“Sharpie. It’s called a sharpie.”

I turned, shifting again despite my objections to being elderly and frail. “What in Nether’s name does a dog wrinklier than a spoiled prune have to do with a writing utensil?”

The teen smacked his hand into his face with enough force to leave an angry green mark behind.

I nudged him aside to look at the viewer’s screens.

My merriment quickly died at the sight of a feminine wraith pausing near a naturally occurring portal connecting to the ‘bodied’ plane. Vibrant green eyes gleamed within the churning shadows that made up her flesh as she stared at me, sensing my presence from afar.

A smile filled with serrated pins for teeth flashed in my direction before she disappeared into the temporary portal above her. It blinked shut with a staticy pop.

I closed the distance between myself and the screen, kneeling to inspect it. My hand reached to try recalibrating the mirror.

It was a lost cause. I couldn’t pinpoint a core sustained by the life force of others.

It was perhaps the most irritating curse of my self-imposed imprisonment.

I was an appointee who couldn’t fulfill his duties.

There was never a shortage of demons, and each year saw a new variety or variant with appalling abilities few could imagine, much less combat.

At first, demons were the direct result of the wicked who expired upon mortal soil. But once news of their depravity spread beyond the Netherworld, belief-formed beings—crafted from ill-learned souls—began to incarnate anew with each cycle, birthing a new generation of wraiths.

Sacrificial offerings became rampant.

Entire civilizations fell.

Humanity hid from the dark, whispering warnings to their children of dangers lurking just beyond sight.

And so, life chose its first guardian: a chosen embassary.
This artifact-imbued sacrifice would hunt demons and malicious objects plaguing our world for eternity—or until their soul met its demise in the line of duty.

The first embassary was gone, having died in my arms, and the other souls meant to bear that burden had been scattered throughout time by horrendous tragedy—and the very demons they were tasked to hunt.

But before the fall of the first embassary, before the rise of Slaugh and his demonic herald, there were six appointees.

Dio, the Greek origin of the vampire, cursed by a demon lover he was destined to kill and patronized by the fae god Hades. His elemental gifts were hewn in water, and despite his curse, he revolutionized healing in remote regions long after his demise.

Yang, the appointee of light born from the Zhou Dynasty, was an expert weapons craftsman and poet. His artistry shone in Mù, the Bow of Twilight, with which he laid siege to nine thousand of Tervingi’s undead horde.

Yin, the appointee of shadow and Yang’s twin sister, had a knack for fortune and redirection.

Then there was Tahar, a Nubian boy gifted with the power of ice and draconic privilege.

Inti, a fae god of the Sun and distant forebear to the Inca Empire.

And finally, there was me—Nikkal’s first appointee and the wielder of Kronos.

We were the assistants born of the ages, tasked with aiding our embassary until the cycle claimed us.

When had I last seen a world where appointees held no fear of being overrun by the very creatures they were sanctioned to expel?

I stared at Daniel’s reflection as he yammered about herbs and nose-clogging spices. Young—perhaps the youngest of the unrealized to gain his spectral prowess.
And… I was worried.

Embassarys weren’t meant to endure alone, yet every current human artifact existed in isolation.

To my chagrin, Daniel’s chaotic arrival came without support. The only other being I could hope to compare him to was Tahar, but that was based more on age than on trials or temperament.

I shivered.

Long ago, in a segment of the Netherworld now called the Timeless Lands, there floated a far less battered Tower of Babel. The stone was smoother, lacking the melted char of flame or the crumbling hints of ectoplasm on its outer walls.

I had planted that stone spire on the modest plot of land with glee and sculpted it with the finite care of a potter at their wheel. It was—and remains—my most lasting testament to my elemental prowess before the sealing of the self-proclaimed King of Slaughter, Slaugh.

The denizens of the Nether named the tower Babel, for within its walls a language had formed—outside the phonetic structures of both the old and new worlds.

It was an insurance policy. Not everything needed to be said in the language of the soul-folk. Some secrets—like the name and face of the embassary and her companions—were too valuable to gift to any wayward spirit or entity among the Nether’s rolling expanse.

Nikkal had lovingly nicknamed our shortened mortal tongue ‘Babylon,’ or ‘God’s Gate.’ Language, she reasoned, was a gateway for communication.

By all accounts, the creation of ‘Babylon’ was a clever way to fortify our home. By speaking a language unlinked to our cores, we could dictate what we wished others to see without the undeniable truth plastering itself between each letter in all caps.

Cores couldn’t lie.

So it was a deep irony that soul-speak—mortuus loqui—if implemented properly, could have prevented a vast amount of pain and suffering.

The tower’s lower level was quiet, save for the soft crackling of the fire by the stairwell and the near-silent clangs of chimes hanging overhead. They ribboned the ceiling, weaving through Nikkal’s amassed mortal garments and artifacts poking from between them like jeweled ornaments.

Through the front door’s small barred window, the normally ethereal green of the Nether streaked with peach and burgundy. Winter was coming to the mortal plane.

I sat by the fire, one hand on the ivory needle I was working with, the other on Nikkal’s hole-riddled trousers. Inti’s pelt rested on the table a mere two feet away, its spectral golds and blacks glimmering against the black stitching I’d used to mend the demonic slash gouging its back.

My gaze swept to the enchanted candle on the mantel.

Here, time was absent.

I could spend months alone, and it would seem like seconds to my companions wandering the Nether and the living realm. The candle told me Nikkal and Dio were nearing completion of their artifact hunt on the living plane—a two-week journey for them, an eternity for me.

Yin and Yang had left only hours earlier to investigate some gargoyle formed from pagan statues dotting the Roman trade routes. Inti and Tahar had stayed longer but inevitably had to leave. Inti traveled to the far east of the Netherworld in search of medicinals. Tahar, rather than keeping me company, had fled north to seek aid in mastering his icy core.

A mass of glowing, multicolored feathers and luminous green scales shifted sleepily at my feet. Umu, the raptor poltergeist Nikkal had saved long ago as Inti’s companion, was my only company.

The reptile stretched, feathered front arms fanning and fluffing as if to seduce a mate. He chirped questioningly, and I rolled my eyes.

“No, they won’t be back for at least another two days.”

His jaws clicked, and a long tail swished irritably against the floor.

I pulled the thread through fabric I was mending. “I only have Nikkal’s energy on the candle. For all we know, Inti or Tahar could walk through that door at any moment.”

Umu huffed, settling his large head back against his nest, yellow eyes flickering dejectedly at the new carvings adorning the ceiling rafters and the small paintings I’d hidden on the side of our table.

My shoulders slumped.

I was running out of distractions, and a gnawing ache was forming in my ectoplasmic flesh.

Umu glanced at me.

I shook my head and focused on the repetitive stabbing of the needle.

The door rattled open, and Umu ran for it with giddy glee. Feathers engulfed the golden-skinned god at the threshold. He adjusted my artifact cloak where it sat on his shoulders and chuckled as a long serpentine tongue ran along the side of his cheek and up into his long braided ebony hair.

Spying me through a gap in Umu’s hug, he phased through the reptile. Arms spread wide, one hand holding the plants and berries he’d gathered, the other grasping a thin cord of spectral fish.

“Enten!”

I almost jumped from my place by the fire to greet him in a warm embrace.

Retracting, I asked, “You didn’t find any trouble while running errands, did you?”

He rolled his eyes. “Few pick fights with fire cores.”

I smirked. “Arguable. I know at least one fool who likes picking fights with our resident flame charmer.”

Inti playfully elbowed me as he set his haul on the table. “You said it, not me, rockhead.”

My eyes rolled, and I quickly helped place the herbs above the hearth to dry. The berries went into clay jars, and the fish—

My mouth watered at the thought of a fresh meal. Umu yipped happily at the silvery spectral beasts.

Inti yawned and raised a brow, noticing an absence. “Where’s Tahar?”

I formed a knife from the stone wall behind the kitchen counter, drawing the gray rock like a potter molding clay until I had a razor-sharp point poised over the fish. It floated for a moment before spiraling into my palm.

“...He left to ask the Seng Ge for aid with his core abilities.”

Inti frowned. “When did he leave?”

I kept my eyes on the glassy-eyed fish. “Just after you did.”

Inti pulled off my cloak and tossed it on the table with a frustrated growl. “Damn it, Enten! We discussed this before Nikkal and Dio left. None of us are to be left alone in this tower—not after what happened with Yin.”

I flinched, recalling the near-manic episode that had resulted from her vigil of the home. The mute appointee had almost gone insane from the lack of companionship.

A fate I had dodged and woven around countless times. Thankfully, Nikkal and I had come upon a stable solution for the tower. We just needed time to set preventative measures in motion.

I glanced over my shoulder. “I don’t mind…”

Black-tipped fingers motioned to the tower around us. “This is meant to be a home—not solitary confinement for whoever draws the short straw ensuring a demonic doesn’t raid it. No one is meant to be alone for this—”

He deflated as his green eyes settled on me with worry. “Enten, are you truly fine?”

I averted my gaze and chuckled. “Never better.”

“...Say that again in the language of the soul.”

I grimaced and bowed my head. “Never better.” The truth danced just beneath the soul-energy-laden syllables: I’ll be fine soon.

Inti rubbed a hand through his wind-tousled locks, accidentally tugging at his braid. “How long has it been since we left?”

My hand paused above the filet I’d made. “The tower shifted and floated east while you were away. It’s been at least six months, old friend.”

Inti paled, the gilded glow fading from his cheeks to a sickly brown. “Six months?”

He turned to inspect the shelf beside the stairwell where pantry staples usually sat. He blanched. “How long have you been without food?”

“I’m a ghost, Inti,” I chided.

His hands fisted, motioning at me in exasperation. “But you weaken, unlike Yin, Yang, or Tahar!”

He closed the distance, lifting an ear like a hound and pinching my cheek to see if the ectoplasmic flesh would slosh away like pustulant ooze or dissipate like mist.

I slapped his hand away and defended, “But I am soul-folk regardless.”

“As are Dio, Nikkal, and I. We all need sustenance to be at our best, spectral or otherwise.”

The god’s long ears flickered and pinned, the earrings jangling. The turquoise and jaguar bone twinkled with an unusually sharp luster.

Gathering a copper pot from hooks above the mantel, I began arranging our meal.

“I’m no god, vampire, or embassary.”

“You are my brother—in spirit if nothing else—and as such, you will hear me out on this!”

I deflated instantly and nodded. “You won’t have to wait long. Nikkal just needs time.”

“That’s all we have here,” Inti retorted.

His arm reached across my shoulder to hand me salt. “And company breeds suspicion the longer it is withheld.”

I chuckled in surprise. “You’re suspicious of me? Inti, I’m wounded at such blatant accusations.”

“Not in that regard!” He defended. “More that some standards upheld by the departed aren’t akin to you. If anything, Tahar should’ve been minding the tower—and even then, no one was to leave a single appointee alone in these walls—”

Umu clicked his snout, offended he wasn’t considered strong enough to help.

Inti rolled his eyes and crossed his arms addressing the raptor, “I said appointee, Umu, not guardian.”

Umu preened at the title and curled closer to the hearth as we worked. Inti bent to stoke the flames but fumbled with the poker. I caught his wrist questioningly.

“Speaking of fatigue, you could have done that with a glance before your trip. You said few pick fights with fire cores—but we both know that courtesy doesn’t extend outside Babel.”

Inti groaned, his free hand coming over my face for silence. “I’m simply exhausted.”

I smirked under his fingers. Pulling them away, I motioned to the stairs. “Then get some rest. It’ll be at least an hour before this is done.”

Inti hummed thoughtfully and began climbing, dragging his feet every other step. Umu wagged his tail and glanced at me for guidance. I rolled my eyes and waved him forward.

“Go on. I think he could use a cuddle for his hard-won efforts.”

Umu bounded up the stairwell, and Inti yelped as he was tackled through a forming door beside Nikkal’s. It clicked closed behind them and glowed bright green as the tower expanded its walls to form yet another door beside it. Another appointee would soon be home.

I set the pot over the flames and returned to my mending.
Three hours slipped by like a blur before the front door of our home creaked open.

Tahar stepped inside, kicking off the muddy shoes he’d borrowed from me. I tied a knot in my thread and raised a brow. “Did you find what you needed in the Seng Ge’s realm?”

He tossed a piece of black parchment onto the table, irritation clear in his voice. “None of them were any help. Only that cub with the crushed arm from the ice slide had any tips.”

My gaze snapped to the buzzing artifact the young appointee had carelessly thrown down. I set aside my needlework. “…Tahar, what were you doing with the Bone Atlas?”

He glared, barely a man yet. “I used it to find the safest route from Babel to the Frozen Peaks.”

I reached for the map but hissed as angry ice crept along my hand, ectoplasm biting cold.

Tahar flinched as the frost mirrored itself on his own flesh and quickly withdrew his element.

My yellow eyes locked onto his silvery white ones. “...We will be discussing this when our comrades return.”

He glared back. “Discuss what? I already told you why I borrowed it!”

I snatched his ice-bitten wrist with my injured palm; the mirrored wounds shimmered in the firelight. “As harrowing as it is to have an astray map that can show the location of an embassary, the fact you attacked me again without provocation is becoming a problem. What would Inti—”

He slapped me hard, and I fell backward, landing on my ass with a grimace. My cheek throbbed. “Ow.”

The young man flinched as the strike echoed through his own flesh. He averted his gaze. “I’ll be in my room.” Kicking himself up from the floor, he flew up the stairs.

I reached for him. “Tahar—”

His door slammed shut, shaking the ribbons and brass bells hanging in the rafters. I sat for a long moment, staring at the door, at a loss. After some thought, I reformed my gloves over my injured palm and shifted the light on my face to hide the angry welt his slap had carved.

The map on the table flashed once, a bright otherworldly white glowing amid the magical realm. I stood and gently unfurled it to see what had caused the artifact’s distress. A smile touched my lips at the bright white spot overlapping the tower.

Then the light flickered—and died.

My smile vanished. I turned on my heel, rushing for the stairwell. I’d need Inti’s help with Nikkal—

The front door slammed open again, and I spun, black locks whipping my face as I crashed against her breast. My arms searched desperately for injury or artifact affliction.

Nikkal blinked owlishly and patted a tired hand against my spine. “Enten—”

“What happened?” I pulled her back to inspect for any marks or harm.

My embassary—no, my wife, though none of the others knew—held me back. “Nothing happened, Enten.”

Dio chuckled behind her. “Unless you count catching this abomination as problematic.” He lifted a golden cage housing a child’s toy. The clay doll glared and growled, its tiny wooden teeth gnashing with demented hunger.

I turned back to the map, searching for inconsistencies, only to find Nikkal’s familiar embassaric white glow overlapping the tower.

I slouched over the artifact, exhaling a chill breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.

Nikkal stopped behind me, resting a hand on my spine. “Dio? Can you manage dinner? I think Enten needs a reprieve.”

The vampire nodded fondly, placing the feral toy on our dining table. It scrambled against its prison, chittering foul mortuus loqui at us.

Nikkal opened our bedroom door and ushered me in. The aged brass and spectral oak clicked shut, and I was turned so soft lips could caress mine.

If there were a heaven for innate sensation, I found it long ago. My lips buzzed, warmed by her coaxing. My back pressed flush against the door as gloved hands traced her jaw, fingers brushing the soft curve of her cheek. My vision crackled and blurred beneath layers of euphoria no sane man could transcribe.

The necklace I had carved for her—a soft green glass no bigger than a marble—thudded against my breast. Her heart thrummed in my ears, a melody so sweet tears pooled at the corners of my vision.

Her fingers laced into my hair, and I sighed, content in her arms.

Daniel jolted me from my blank stare through the looking glass. “Earth to Enten. Hello in there—”

‘What I’d give for that Atlas right now.’ I rubbed my tired eyes and stood. “Sorry. What were you saying?”

He rolled his teal eyes and crossed his arms. “I want to get back at a cruddy paranormal adult. Crosses and stakes are out—I can’t afford enough crosses to line his house, and hundreds of wooden spikes are a bit much.”

I sighed. “If Google failed you, maybe call someone who actually knows about this stuff.”

Daniel blinked, a wide grin breaking out. He hugged me, then flew toward the door. “You’re a genius! I’ll be back in a few days—” The door slammed, his words already fading on the static wind.

Three weeks later, he returned to the Nether with an injured DND god in tow—having done the unthinkable to the only true embassaric power in existence.

I shudder to think what Damian would do when he finds out who gave his foolish protégé the idea to call in an army of terrorists masquerading as ghost hunters.

My eyes drifted to the far side of the tower, its door scarred with charred abrasions and the vague outline of an angry hand.

I would leave if I could, but—

My form shifted again with a sickening splurch. I stumbled and fell, one hand cradling my trembling jaw.

Crimson stained my fingertips, nearly void of ectoplasmic greens or blues.

Curling my legs beneath me, I sat and stared toward the mantel where a small flame had once flickered. A light danced over long-melted wax—it haunted me.

I raised a trembling hand to my fingers.

When my ectoplasm turns true crimson, I’ll no longer be able to regulate the spectral damage wrought by Nikkal’s absence and Slaugh’s sealing. Days... maybe even hours. Then I’ll be nothing more than a memory.

I chuckled softly, speaking to the flame’s ghost above the mantel. “...You always wished for a child, Nikkal. I just hope you don’t meet me in cycle as one…”

Rain began to patter outside the tower, glowing like millions of luminous bubbles in the wind. Each drop hovered in suspended states—some falling like tar, others rising like reversed candle wax, some lingering like detached eyes floating endlessly between their brethren.

“...I pray those two idiots don’t kill each other in my absence.”

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