by Jeff Gunhus
Carefully, I walked to the curtains and pushed one edge aside with the tip of my sword. I saw the glow of candlelight from the room beyond, but couldn’t make out any details. Nothing jumped out and took my head off, so that was positive. With a deep breath and every muscle in my body tense, I stepped through the curtain.
The room on the other side was enormous, like the inside of a cathedral. The ceiling soared overhead, supported by crossing buttresses. A row of thick stone columns lined either side. The far side of the columns was veiled in pitch-black shadow, giving the space the feeling of a long, rectangular hall. Stained glass, several stories high, decorated the far side of the room, letting in natural light to add to the hundreds of black candles burning everywhere.
My worst fears were not realized right away. There was no Creach army waiting for me. There wasn’t even a personal guard. In fact, the great hall was empty.
Except for the person sitting on the raised throne at the point furthest from me, silhouetted against the light from the stained glass window.
And what a window it was. As I slowly walked the length of the hall, I chanced a look up at it. I’d been to Notre Dame cathedral in Paris and seen the beautiful images of Bible stories and of saints in stained glass, but I’d never seen anything like this.
The centerpiece was a two story image of Ren Lucre himself, dressed in blood-red armor and wielding two curved swords. Around his feet were the headless corpses of his enemies, some Creach, but mostly human. Then, stacked on stakes around him, were the heads.
Not a very welcoming image.
I reminded myself that the last time I’d faced Ren Lucre in battle, way back in Sunnyvale, I’d bested him one-on-one. And my abilities with a sword were far better now. Maybe I still stood a chance.
“Ren Lucre,” I shouted, my voice sounding small and frail as it bounced around the great hall. “I’ve come for you. It’s time we finish our fight.”
The shadowy figure stood from the throne, and walked slowly down the steps toward me until the candlelight showed his face.
I nearly dropped my sword at the sight.
It wasn’t Ren Lucre after all. It was a man with black hair that hung down to his shoulders. His beard was flecked with grey, but it didn’t hide his strong, square jaw. He stood with his shoulders back and head held high like someone accustomed to command. He wore the uniform of a hunter, the kind Aquinas had us wear back at the Academy, and had a sword strapped to his waist.
I can’t say how, but I knew instantly who he was. I stared at him with equal measures of bewilderment and awe.
“Dad?” I said, the question in my voice not matching the certainty I felt. His image was blurry as tears welled in my eyes. After years living as an orphan, I was finally face-to-face with the only family I had.
He nodded. “Jack?”
My heart nearly exploded, hearing his voice say my name. I walked toward him but stumbled, my feet feeling as though they were in cement. I caught myself and saw that he was smiling.
“What are you…how can you be…” I said, all my questions running over one another. “I thought you were in the dungeon.”
“I was but I managed to escape. I’ve waited here for you.” My dad closed the distance between us and wrapped his arms around me. “I knew this is where you would come.”
I clung to him, hugging him back. Before I knew it, I was crying into his shoulder, the emotional release washing over me like a flood.
“Shhh…” he said. “It’s all right. We’re together now. We’re together.”
I wondered at the strength of his arms and how solid he felt. He was as I imagined he would have been in his prime, a hunter at the peak of his training. But it shocked me because of my image of him in Ren Lucre’s dungeons, wasting away for all these years.
He stepped back and held me at arms’ length. “Let me look at you. You’re a young man now, not the little boy I always had in my mind. And I see your mother in you. You got lucky there.”
I grinned at the compliment, for that moment completely forgetting that we were in enemy territory, surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of Creach that wanted to kill us.
But the feeling of joy didn’t last. My friends were in the castle somewhere, running for their lives. They still needed me.
“Where is Ren Lucre?” I asked. “We need to find him.”
My father nodded. “I should have ended this years ago, but now it’s time. Together we will defeat him and avenge your mother’s death. Do you have the Jerusalem Stones?”
“I had them, but when the dragon… picked… me…” my voice trailed off as I explored my dad’s face. “How did you know I had the Stones?”
“Ren Lucre told me,” he said. “He used to torment me in my prison cell. Sometimes he’d tell me you’d been killed, and wouldn’t tell me the truth for weeks at a time. I’ve mourned your death more than once. But then he would come in raging when you acquired another Stone. I was proud of you, Jack. You did what no other hunter has ever done before. You did what I could never do.”
I flushed with pride, but tried not to let it distract me. Even though his explanation sounded reasonable, there was something in his voice that was off. I couldn’t place exactly what it was; only recognized a stirring in my gut that warned me something was wrong. Really wrong.
“And how did you get out of the dungeon?” I asked. “Did you escape?”
“Yes, I fought my way out and confronted Ren Lucre,” he said. “We fought in this very room. I injured him, but we need the Jerusalem Stones to finish him off.” He held out his hand. “Give them to me and together we will destroy Ren Lucre and all the Creach forever.”
“All the Creach?”
“Of course,” he said. “We’re the Black Guard, the last of the Templar Knights. We are monster hunters, Jack. We hunt and then we kill. Not just some of the Creach, but all of them. They hate us. They want to kill us. The only sane thing to do is kill them first.”
His last words hit me like a punch in the stomach. It was the kind of hate I expected from the Colonel
“My mother, the woman you loved, was a Creach,” I said softly. “The woman who raised me, Aunt Sophie, was a devil-werewolf. Gregor was a vampire. My friends carry Creach blood in them now. Shakra, Lord of the Vampires, gave me her Jerusalem Stone willingly because she decided the world had had enough of hate.”
“I don’t believe you,” my dad said, his lips curled. “She would never have done that.”
“She did,” I said. “And then she helped us escape from the vampire horde because she wanted me to succeed. And there were others who helped along the way. All of them ready for peace between Creach and man.” I pulled my sword from my side and held it in front of me. “None of them want your war.”
“My war? What are you talking about?”
“I don’t have the Jerusalem Stones with me so you don’t need the disguise,” I said. “I have only my sword, but that’s all I need to fight you. Show yourself, Ren Lucre. I know it’s you.”
My dad shook his head sadly and for the briefest second I wondered if I’d made a terrible mistake. But then his face sagged and his hair and beard grew long and wild. His body seemed to wither as his clothes turned to rags, and he slumped over holding his side.
With a trembling voice, he said, “Perhaps I should have appeared as your father truly looks now down in my dungeon.”
“It wasn’t how you appeared that gave you away,” I said. “It was your hate that told me.”
The body in front of me changed again, this time obscured by a swirl of thick black smoke that twisted like coils of rope. Then the smoke lifted and there, standing in front of me, was the Lord of all the Creach.
My grandfather.
Ren Lucre.
33
“Aren’t you a clever boy?” Ren Lucre hissed.
Truth was, I didn’t feel clever. I just felt really scared. And Ren Lucre slowly pulling a long, curved sword from his side didn’t help matters.
“Where are the Jerusalem Stones?” he said. “You were supposed to bring them to me. That was the whole point.”
I tried to make sense of his meaning. “I don’t understand. You wanted me to have the Jerusalem Stones?”
A low, rolling laugh rose up from Ren Lucre, seeming to fill the cathedral-like space. “Maybe you aren’t as clever as everyone thinks after all,” he said. “Of course I wanted you to bring me the Stones. Why do you think I allowed you to live the last time we met? Why have I been helping you this entire time?”
My mind raced through everything I’d survived since the fateful day in Sunnyvale; the day before my fourteenth birthday, the day Eva found me and told me about my ancestry.
“You weren’t helping me,” I said, hating the doubt in my voice. “I had to fight to get the Stones. My friends sacrificed so we could get them. People died.”
“So you could collect them for me.”
“No, so I could destroy you,” I said.
Ren Lucre shook his head. “You think the Oracle at Delphi helped you out of the kindness of her heart? Or that the goblin army stopped at the Academy gates because that army of children you commanded was too powerful?” He grinned, exposing vampire teeth. “Did you really think someone like you could actually do all those things on your own?”
I thought through it all. at the first fight with Ren Lucre, I’d injured him and he’d fled before I could finish him off. There was the Aquamorph that had attacked our ship in the open ocean. The battle with the ogre in the Cave of Trials, the giant spiders, goblins and then the dragon. With my friends I’d fought ancient vampires, hordes of werewolves, and battled to the death with the Boros. We’d battled gargoyles on the top of Notre Dame cathedral that had come alive, faced the magical djinn of the desert, and the devils trapped in the Underworld. Those times and so many others, we’d faced death together and survived.
And Ren Lucre wanted me to believe it was all to do his bidding.
That he’d been using me and my friends the entire time.
“You’re a liar,” I said. “The Jerusalem Stones were the way to destroy you. There’s no way you wanted me to get them.”
Ren Lucre dragged his sword across the stone floor, filling that air with a grating sound.
“The Jerusalem Stones have incredible power,” he said. “It was why the Creach Lords each held one. They knew, just as I did, that if one of them were to possess them all, then that Lord would be unstoppable. Even the Black Watch knew this to be true. No Templar ever held all five at once. It was too dangerous.”
I remembered what it had felt like to hold four Stones. The sheer power in them had been amazing, but so had the darkness that came with it.
“My mother held all five Stones,” I said.
Ren Lucre stopped in place. For a second, I saw his features soften. For that moment, he looked simply like a father who had lost a daughter. Then, just as quickly, his expression turned hard and severe. “Yes, she did. Because she wanted to have a human child. And see what happened. It killed her and all we’re left with is a pathetic excuse for a hunter. One that can’t even do what he is told.”
Without warning, Ren Lucre struck at me with his sword. I fended it off and when our swords met there was an explosion of sparks. He swung again and again, but now that I was ready, I parried each time.
He stepped back, nodding.
“You’ve improved,” he said. “Not by much, but it’s something.”
“I’ve been working at it,” I said.
“While you’ve been doing my bidding,” he replied. “Now, where are they? Where are the Stones?”
“One’s at the bottom of the lake,” I said. “The Lord of the Lesser Creach took it with him.”
Ren Lucre reached into a pocket and pulled out a round, black orb. “Oh, you mean this? Old Gresklin, that was the name of the troll you killed, always left the Stone behind when he went to battle. I couldn’t take it while he was alive, but once you and your friends killed him…” He shrugged. “See? Even now you’re paving the way for me.”
I felt a pit open in my stomach. I wondered if it could possibly be true. Could we have been on this quest for the Jerusalem Stones the entire time for Ren Lucre?
You’re a pawn in someone else’s game, was what Bella the Witch had said to me.
Then I remembered Shaitan, the Lord of the Demons, had said something similar. Oh, Jack, you’re just a pawn in a larger game that you don’t even know you’re playing. It’s almost pathetic that you never discovered the truth.”
They’d all known that Ren Lucre was using me. All of them.
“Ahh…I can see you’re just realizing that it’s true,” Ren Lucre said. “You see now that everything has been as I wanted it to be. Everything you have done, every battle you have fought, has been because it was what I wanted. When the human world ends, and it will end, you will know that you were the driving force to make it happen.”
My head swam at the thought. The blood in my veins felt like ice water.
“This can’t be true. You’re lying. Besides, I don’t even have the Stones so it didn’t help you.”
Ren Lucre ran his finger down the length of his sword blade as if testing its sharpness. “I admit, having the five Jerusalem Stones would have made things easier, but it’s not completely necessary. You see, I didn’t need you to bring me the Stones, I just needed you to take them from the other Lords. For too long, their fear of open war with the humans has led them to hide in the shadows and lurk beneath the soil. They were against this war because they were afraid. Without their Stones, they will not be able to oppose me.”
These words rang true. I believed the Creach Lords had held Ren Lucre in check; the evidence was a world where most humans didn’t even realize the Creach were all around them. Certainly there were those in the shadows, but many others lived in the human world, blending in, belonging. Just as my Aunt Sophie had done. Even a devil-wolf had learned to care for and love a young human boy as only a mother could.
“The humans will fight back,” I said. “They have war machines that you can’t match.”
Ren Lucre smiled. He raised a hand and a rough, crunching sound came from the darkness beyond the row of columns to my right.
A round cage rolled deliberately across the stone floor as if pushed by some unseen force. It was at least ten feet tall with rough bars of twisted metal; it was easy to see between them at what was inside.
Or, in this case, who. The Colonel stared out from behind the bars, walking slowly to keep pace with his moving cage. His bluster was gone; instead, he looked shell-shocked, like he didn’t quite know where he was.
“You mean the humans will use weapons like the Colonel here tried to use on me?” Ren Lucre said. “I think people will find, just as the Colonel did, that my forces are everywhere. Burrowed into every military, every police force, every world capital. When the time comes, they will rise up and humans will be put under Creach rule where they belong.”
The air filled with more of the rough crunching sound. All down the length of the hallway, round cages rolled out of the dark shadows and into the light. I saw Ritgo, Khan and Michael in one ball together. The others each held four or five soldiers, climbing over each other as their ball rolled. They reminded me of hamsters I’d seen in a pet store once, all stuffed into a ball so they could run around. There were dozens of them.
Then I saw one roll toward me from the far end of the room. The other balls made way so that this new one had a straight path to me. A small cry escaped me when I saw who was inside.
Master Aquinas.
With her mouth gagged, and hands tied behind her back.
She stood upright, shoulders back, easily keeping pace as the ball rolled forward as if she were out for an afternoon walk. Unlike the Colonel, she’d clearly not been broken.
“Let her go,” I said, feeling my fear turn to anger.
Ren Lucre grinned, pleased with my reaction. “I would, you know. If
you just tell me where you put the Jerusalem Stones. I felt them as you came closer to the castle, but now they’ve disappeared. They are hidden from me somehow.”
“I thought you said you didn’t need them.”
“I don’t need them. But that doesn’t mean I don’t want them,” he said. “Unbridled power would deliver victory to us much faster. If you think about it, you’d be saving lives. The war will happen with or without the Stones. And I will win with or without them. The only variable is how many people I have to kill before they surrender.”
“People don’t give up so easily,” I said. “You can kill thousands and we won’t give in to you.”
“Really?” Ren Lucre walked to Master Aquinas’s cage and pulled back his sword as if to stab her while she stood helpless inside.
“Let’s see what happens when I just kill this one.”
34
“Wait!” I cried.
Ren Lucre smiled wickedly. “Ah, you see how easy it is? And what if we make it even more interesting?”
He waved a hand and another metal ball rolled from the shadows. Inside was a man in rags that barely clung to his body. He was so dirty that it was hard to tell where his skin met his filthy clothes. His hair was long and wild. When he raised his head I saw that he too was gagged. But I saw his eyes and at that moment I knew I was finally looking at my real father.
“Dad,” I whispered.
He tried to say something to me, but it was muffled by the gag. The way his eyes shone with tears told me more than any words. The metal cage rolled to a stop next to Ren Lucre so that Master Aquinas was on one side and my dad on the other.
“Let’s play a game,” Ren Lucre said. “I’ll let you guess which one I’m going to kill first. After you guess, we’ll see if you’re right or not.”
“It doesn’t have to be like this,” I said.
“How else can it be?” he said. “Do you think humans will let Creach live in the light of day? Do you think people like the Colonel will ever stop hunting us? Even the great Aquinas has dedicated her life to training and teaching a new generation of hunters. Not diplomats. Not peacekeepers. Hunters.”