Vincent and Neil turned the final corner to the alleyways around the vortex into the void, and Dev lifted his dark gaze from the pile of rubble he's been staring at. The man was perched patiently on broken concrete and brick, knowing all he had to do to destroy this world was wait. Wait with the void open.

Dev's skin was so dark that it was difficult to discern much of his facial features save the whites of his eyes, and with those more pitch spiraled with mentally decayed glee. Dev had checked out and was waiting for the world to crumble, making him ten times as dangerous. A councilman with nothing to lose would heed no vampire law nor care who or what he crushed in the way.

Neil really shouldn't be here.

Yes, he was powerful enough to go toe to toe with Dev for a while, but he'd never win. Dev was centuries old, built like a tank, and deranged. Neil could easily get caught up on something small like protecting one of his own or holding back to spare the town, and it would be his undoing. Vincent knew that, which is why he'd objected to this and tried to off the Medium.

"Vincent, you're back." Dev's deep voice boomed as he flashed his fangs, not even concerned about the specter nor his living son. Who would be with half the undead Valk generals surrounding him.

"I see you've been entertaining yourself." Vincent's gaze drifted to Falz, Hel's hand wrapped in his mage attire as he dragged him on the ground. The mage hung limp with a groan that cut off as the vampire dropped him.

"Not me so much as Hel. Guy has some beef with the Aurions, and he can beat this one to a pulp on repeat. You wouldn't happen to know anything about that, would you?" Dev's smile widened as Hel took notice of Neil standing before them. Hel growled low but it rolled near a purr as he imagined breaking Neil down for size.

"Falz, pick your ass up. The act isn't funny." Vincent spit air derisively, and Falz lifted his dimmed blue eyes. For a moment, the mage specter touched a wound on his right abdomen, but then he flickered out of sight. Now next to Vincent, Falz slid a hand on his hip and ran the other through his fluffy blond hair.

"Sorry, he's just so stupid, it's amusing." Delight glittered into Falz' blue eyes, and he dropped them abruptly to Neil with interest. Neil edged away, but out of discomfort rather than fear. While Neil recognized the man, the Aurions had never been too friendly with the Arcs, less so after they'd tried to put the house in the ground. "Your brood doesn't like me as much as Meredith, and for good reason. You're an absolute pissant of a man, Vincent, watching them slaughter innocents."

"The void should have come first, Falz."

"Life comes first, Vincent. Always life. Death can wait." Falz had a good argument even though Vincent was right if they couldn't seal the void in time to save this dimension. If the void swallowed the land of the living, his actions were meaningless.

"Shit midget," Hel Valk said, prowling toward Neil, but Vincent kept him cut off from his son with his body as a shield.

"I don't like that man," Selena said, crossing her tiny arms and puffing her cheek. Stone smiled lightly and dropped a hand to her head. In the year they'd spent together, the girl had calmed to his touch, but she needed to return to her family before the void devoured her remaining time. Already, she was in adolescence with how quickly Dhampirs grew, but she couldn't return now with the hostiles at the gate.

Ghost froze, sensing Stone for the first time in near a year. He lifted Stone's hands behind a pair of eyes that didn't belong to this body, and tears filled Ghost's eyes as he realized they were connected. For this to happen, his brother must be right at the precipice, close enough that they could join, but the connection was fractured. Stone's mind was clouded, empty of the soul in should contain, lost without memory. The void had degraded his brother's existance.

"Hello, Ghost," Stone whispered only in his mind so as to keep it from Selena, and Ghost wished so much that he could thrust himself through the void and revive Stone. Their minds could sense each other, touch and move as one, but the connection was only surface level. The deepest parts of Stone's mind hid from him, as Ghost's did from Stone.

"You remember me?" Ghost uttered back, and elation lifted Stone's mind where they connected.

"I may have forgotten myself here, but you will never fade, Ghost. We'll be together again. Not now, perhaps, but don't despair as much as you have been." Stone was chastising him without any memories of himself to draw from, like the man was in a position to criticize him when he'd thrown his life away for someone as pathetic as Ghost was.

"Your alliance with Talamayas really took us for a ride, but selling your soul to a Song of all things," Hel's voice drew both Ghost and Stone's attention where he watched through the void gate. "How truly disgusting must you be to ally with a human supremacist. Do you thank him as he spits on you when you cross paths?"

"Shut your filthy mouth." Ghost moved to Neil's side in an instant, his connection to Stone revitalizing him. Stone wasn't weak and blood-drained, so neither was Ghost at least in his mind. If he sustained injury, he'd fall faster than he cared for, but that wouldn't happen here. An aggressive growl rolled form his lips as he focused his grey eyes on Hel's dropped jaw.

"What are you?" Hel Valk looked him up and down as if he were a child who'd wondered into the center of a cock fight. Someone was about to lose their head, and it wasn't Ghost.

Stone's power of the void rolled down through him, and he ushered Selena to back a few steps and give him space. Magic did not persist in the void, but Stone drew power from the dimension itself, not magic. It howled as he called, spiraling fallen spirits into an instrument of death as he awaited Ghost's call.

"I am Vice Sol, and you will not insult my master, in death or life, Hel Valk," Ghost said calmly, sliding his hands into his jean pockets. It would make him appear unguarded when in reality Stone was at Hel's back, just waiting to crush him.

"Your Master?" Hel Valk grimaced even in death. "I have the utmost respect for Talamayas Sol, even after my passing. Perhaps more after he burned me alive with no hesitation." Hel's laugh shook his broad shoulders, ripped bits of fabric barely wrapping his upper arms. What color or style his clothes had been was impossible to discern with them covered in ash and half burnt away. "Yes, Talamayas chose the other side for reasons I can't fathom, but I mean him no insult. I would also not relish slaying any of his. All of the men Talamayas raises are powerful beyond measure and loyal to our kind without question. Still, I have never heard of you, Vice Sol."

No one had heard of him. Those that did died. As Hel was about to. Again.

"If you respect my master, then you must as well his Soul bound. Wren Sol will not be slandered by the likes of you." Ghost's words came out in a hiss that didn't penetrate the slow-turning wheels of Hel's brain.

"Wren... Sol." The words wavered as they came out of Hel Valk, like someone had punched him in the chest, satisfyingly instilling horror. Hel flicked his eyes to Dev for confirmation and the councilman shrugged his shoulders.

"They were joined after your passing, though Wren Song's chain magic was sealed and he accepted all of the soul bound rituals. You should have seen Wren Song grovel at our feet for Talamayas, so tortured and broken that he'd lick the man's feet. With the binding, Talamayas Sol's magic has tainted the mage, which is what the man wanted, I'm sure. Now no mage will take Wren, and he has a body that heals from torture."

"But to join him to his house." Hel Valk stuck his tongue out, and a silver stud shined in the light. "Talamayas always took his obsession too far, but that's what made him feared. I'd certainly give my vacation here away readily if I could hear that shit Song scream as Talamayas bent him over and fucked him into the dirt he belongs in."

Hel Valk was not a quick study, nor did he understand the consequences of uttering such filth near any Sol. Death made the man confident and brash, but Ghost had lived side by side with the void for decades. Before Hel had even finished speaking, Stone had already made his move.

Tired of Hel's putrid existence, Stone reached his power out of the void, sliding it through the gateway so silently that Hel never saw it coming. It crawled through the air as a wisp of darkness first, stretching and thickening until it was solid like an arm. Just as Hel said the word 'fuck' black spikes thrust out of the end of his power in ghastly fingers. Just for fun, Stone trailed a single finger stroke down Hel's back. It gave the specter enough time to jump, but not so to save himself.

The ghastly arm thrust through Hel's chest, and claws dug back in from the front to hold him in place. The fingers wound in and out of the man's ribs to keep hold of him, and Hel screamed. The man had done so when Talamayas had burned him alive too, and Ghost was a little sad that his master could not hear the agony of the man who'd wished harm on his soul bound. Truly, no sound rang sweeter. Hel tried to get away by dematerializing parts of his body, but it was moot as Stone had complete control. While specters could fight and put themselves back together against one another, Stone held the will on the void and it wanted its residents back.

"Speak ill of my master again," Ghost spoke slowly, fangs bared and trailing closer to the trapped man. Dev backed away, and as Neil and Vincent circled off to the side, more vampires came out of the woodwork, some specters like Hel and others living as much as vampires did. They were a sizeable force, so this would be no easy task, but Ghost would contribute what he could.

"What are you?" Hel screeched, thrusting an arm for him, but void energy wrapped it and pulled it back to his side.

"I've yet to figure that out." Ghost spoke candidly. Part of him lived on the blood of humans, operating as a vampire, but the other embodied the void, the life after, and fed from the dead. Vice was a creature trapped between life and death, two souls entwined as one. "At the least, I can confidently say I am your end, Hel Valk."

Ghost reached forward and more darkness seeped from the void, wrapping his arm and lifting him off the ground into a cyclone of energy that washed ecstasy over him. While Stone could not be here, it was as if he was embracing him, and that was enough to keep Ghost going.

"Have fun putting yourself back together in the void," Ghost whispered the last as he closed his fist, tendrils of darkness wrapping it, and the claws in Hel's chest mirrored the action.

Hel shrieked and splattered, pieces of him littering the area before sizzling and dying off. It had taken Stone quite some time to find the void gate after Selena appeared, and Hel would not reform and be able to make his way back anytime this year. As Ghost rolled back into the shadows of Stone's power that suspended him, the specters backed away, howls of the damned filling the area in a whirlwind of fear and desperation.

With their focus on Ghost, the living among them converged on Neil and Vincent with a few of Hel's ghastly generals in tow. Hopefully, Vincent and Falz could handle a few while he dispatched of what he could with Stone. Already Ghost knew his body was weakening, but Stone would protect him until the end, whether it be closing the void to save this world, or finally falling into death by his brother's side.

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