“Don’t even go there,” I warned. “This was not my idea.”
“So,” he continued, ignoring my comment. “Are you going as his girlfriend or his fiancée?”
“Oh, shut up,” I snapped. Dylan coughed, trying to hide his laughter. Even M cracked a smile.
“Minerva, please help me convince Quinn this is a really bad idea,” I begged.
“You know,” Dylan piped in before Minerva could offer her two cents worth. “With M and me hanging around the house, there should be more than enough protection for Quinn’s entire family while you two are there.” Dylan smiled devilishly.
“I’m going to find a way to torture you slowly for this, Dylan,” I threatened.
“Sorry, K.C., but this is just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Besides, there’ll be three of us to keep watch. How can you argue with that level of security?”
“In fact,” Dylan continued, twisting the knife in deeper, “when you really think about it, this all actually works out perfectly. K.C. can wait around for the Bloodhounds to call, and Quinn, you’ll be able to spend some quality time with your family before dropping the bomb that you’re leaving for another week or so. No one will be left hanging, no one will be suspicious, no one will be disappointed—and no one will get hurt.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” Quinn agreed.
I didn’t like this one bit. “Quinn, think about this. What about Brady? The Servants already got to him.”
“That was different. Brady let that happen to himself,” Quinn said bitterly.
“And Mary? Quinn,” I continued, “Dylan, Minerva, and I might not be enough manpower depending on how many Servants show up.”
“Who’s to say the Servants will stay away from my family if we leave?” Quinn countered. “They found Brady, and he was halfway across the country. At least this way there are three of you around at all times. Those bastards would be stupid not to take those odds into consideration.”
I couldn’t believe Quinn was so quick to ignore the danger his family might be in by us staying. And for what? So his family could meet me?
“Just try it,” Quinn pleaded. “Give it one night with them, and if things get too heated, I promise we’ll leave—immediately.”
“It’s just one night. What’s one night?” Dylan chimed in, championing Quinn’s cause, smiling wickedly.
“You’re forgetting about tonight,” I said. “We can’t exactly leave Doug all alone in the house.”
“Fine—two nights. K.C., I can assure you, M and I will be patrolling the area like highly-trained canines working the narcotics division,” Dylan stated. “We’ll have the house on lockdown in a second if we smell one trace of the demons’ nasty B.O. Trust me.”
I looked at Minerva, who just shrugged her shoulders. “I think it’s worth trying.”
I looked at Quinn’s hopeful face. Three against one—crap.
“You really want me to be there with you tomorrow night?” I asked him. “To meet your parents?”
“Yes.”
“As who?”
“As my girlfriend, Evie—Evie Har—.” He stopped short when he saw me narrow my eyes and raise my eyebrows at him. “Evie Harper,” he said slowly. The words sounded so awkward and forced it made me wonder whether that was how he really planned to introduce me tomorrow night.
“Quinn—”
“I’ll lie about your name,” he interjected. “But not about what you mean to me.”
“I’m not asking you to lie about your feelings. I was just hoping you’d downplay the status of our relationship when you described it to your family.”
“I’ll see what I can do.” He grinned.
“Yeah, right.” I rolled my eyes.
“Okay, so now that we have that settled,” Dylan stated. “Let’s go over the revised game plan. Instead of Quinn and K.C. going to the new portal on the twelfth, they’ll go on the eleventh.”
“Yup,” I confirmed. “And if I haven’t heard from Jaegar or Chase by then, I’ll leave my cell phone with you, Dylan. If they call, let me know, and we’ll go from there.”
“So in an ideal world,” Dylan recapped, “we’ll all hunker down for the next two days, meet the folks, have a family dinner, get Quinn’s blood from the Bloodhounds, and then get the hell out of town—all while preventing the Servants from kidnapping Quinn, hurting any of his family, or eliminating you. That about sum it up?”
“In a nutshell.” I nodded. “So nice of you to offer to meet Quinn’s parents too,” I teased Dylan telepathically.
“You’re going to have to settle with us being there with you in spirit.” Dylan winked.
“Yeah, watching me make an ass out of myself in front of Quinn’s parents,” I shot back, disgruntled.
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.” He smiled in pure delight.
*
Dylan, Minerva, and I began patrolling the Harrisons’ grounds as soon as we returned. Minerva was always by my side if I was on the outdoor shift, which meant she did twice as many patrols.
“Sorry,” I said to her as we began our third sweep.
“For what?”
“For doubling up your shifts.”
“Don’t worry about it. I mean, what else would I be doing?”
“Watching The Sound of Music with Dylan?” I joked.
“Don’t tell Dylan, but I don’t think I can watch it again. After seeing it eight times over the past two weeks, it’s sort of lost its charm.”
“Understood.” I chuckled. “So,” I said, sighing. “What do you think about me meeting Quinn’s parents—his whole family?”
“I think it’s unnerving as all hell, but it’ll be good for you two. You’re supposed to be doing ‘couple things.’ And right now, you’re in his hometown, staying at his parents’ house. I mean, if you were human, it would be unusual for you not to meet his parents under these circumstances.”
“You’re right,” I conceded. “And I guess I owe Quinn since he’s already met mine.”
“He did?” Minerva asked in complete surprise.
“It was an accident—sort of. But please don’t tell Dylan. It’s yet another thing that could get him in trouble with the Council if he didn’t report it—and you know he won’t.”
“You are a wonder, Evie.” Minerva grinned, shaking her head. “You have no limits when it comes to pushing boundaries, do you?”
I thought about her remark for a minute. “Everyone seems to think all I want to do is bend and break the Rules. But the truth is, I don’t—well, not always. I just do what I think is right, and if that means breaking a Rule or two in the process, then I guess that’s the price I’m willing to pay for following my gut.”
“And tomorrow night, the dinner with Quinn’s parents, what does your gut say about that?”
“That I’m nervous. That we’re risking too much—pushing the limits too far. But I also know Quinn has really wanted this for a while now.” I sighed. “What if his expectations are too high and the whole evening is a bust? Not to mention, he’s going to have to lie about us—about me—to cover up who and what I am because I can’t lie for myself, and I hate putting him in that position.”
“He’s choosing to put himself in that position.”
“Yeah, but he wouldn’t have to if I were human.”
“You can’t say that for sure. Everyone has secrets they want to keep hidden. The most important thing is that Quinn loves you for who you are. He accepts you even with all your skeletons.”
“Will he still accept me for who I am if I have to leave again? If I break his heart because who I am means I might not be able to stay with him?” I sighed heavily. “Tell me how he’s going to explain that to his parents? What are they going to think about me then?”
“Broken hearts are part of growing up. Yes, you might have to leave him one day, but you know it’s not happening on the eighteenth. And Ruben so much as said there’d be another attack. Hey, if we do this right, Quinn and you could
be together for the next twenty years.”
“I can only hope.” A warm, comforting feeling surrounded me like a blanket at the very thought.
“So in the meantime, I think you should try to enjoy getting to know his family. Make Quinn proud of you. Be proud of yourself. It’s not every day we get a chance to be part of a real family.”
11. the journal
It was early in the morning on July tenth. Quinn’s parents were returning from their vacation today. I was so nervous about meeting them I couldn’t possibly relax. Quinn was still fast asleep, and I didn’t want to bother him. So, rather than pace in his room, I decided to use the time to read Tartuf’s Journal. I pulled the leather bound book out of Quinn’s dresser and tucked my engagement ring in the same drawer for safekeeping. (No doubt his mother would recognize the family heirloom.).
I teleported myself into the pool house and unlocked the door in case Quinn woke up and wanted to join me. Sitting down in a lounge chair, I untied the twine wrapped around the Journal and began reading.
I skimmed through the pages, stopping to read a detailed account of the Servants’ origins. Prior to becoming the patriarch of the Servant clan, Mathius had served as one of the original twelve Founders. He was charged with being the Keeper of all unbound souls, which were held in a separate realm, a single chamber, as they awaited their fates. The Keeper not only was in charge of protecting those souls, but he was also responsible for determining which ones were ready to bond with another mortal spirit and return to Earth. Souls were weighed—good deeds versus bad. The more benevolent the soul, the sooner it was eligible to be recycled back into the human race. The general idea being that while all souls kept traces of their past buried deep within them, they had no conscious awareness of their former experiences on Earth. And when joined with an unfamiliar spirit, a new human body, and free will, the unique soul-spirit connection created a tabula rasa, a clean slate, for a brand new life.
Despite his great responsibility and power, over time Mathius grew impatient and greedy. He wanted more. As the Keeper, he realized he had the ability to manipulate the future of the human race by creating his own soul selection process. He began to intentionally choose blemished souls—souls he knew were not ready to re-enter the human race. These souls, good or evil, had much stronger connections with their pasts and were able to hold on to their histories, clinging to them as they bonded with a new human, exerting a perverse level of influence over their new hosts, thereby eliminating the prospect of a clean slate for those humans.
Mathius discovered it was much easier for him to harness, control, and wield the power derived from evil than that originating from virtue and purity, and sought to create a world founded on darkness and sin—a world he would rule. By handpicking and introducing specific clusters of corrupt souls at critical junctions in time, Mathius learned he could plant the seeds for new factions to grow, groups of infants who grew into adults with values rooted in greed, hate, and an insatiable thirst for power. Through “his children,” as he called them, Mathius injected his will and influence into the world, creating dictators, serial criminals, gangs, cults—even wars, famines, and epidemics were within his grasp—all depending on the specific “soul formulas” he’d chosen to use. The result was a slow shift in the scale of greater good versus evil in his favor. It was barely traceable.
Barely.
The Founders ultimately discovered Mathius’s meddling and were enraged by his egregious abuse of power. As he was one of the original twelve members of the Founders Circle, however, they didn’t destroy Mathius. Nonetheless, he was stripped of his position as Keeper, forced out of the Circle, and made an outcast as punishment for his crimes.
The remaining eleven Founders changed their name to the Order of the Realms. Realizing the temptation created from granting only one member of the Order access to all unbound souls, the Founders instituted a system of checks and balances. They divided the souls into two groups, Heaven and Purgatory, and each was assigned its own Keeper, and each Keeper was given one of two keys, called Consecrated Keys, to help safeguard the souls under their watch. Not all unbound souls were accounted for, however—the darkest souls had gone missing. Mathius had stolen them, locking them away in the Underworld, the Realm in which he sought asylum when he was cast out of the Circle, the Realm he has continued to rule for the past few millennia.
Yet, Mathius’s hunger for more power continued to grow, as did his resentment for his former brethren, so he changed his tactics. Nearly nine centuries ago, Mathius turned seven Guardian Angels against the Order of the Realms, exploiting each one’s particular weakness—lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride. He promised these angels an eternity of self-indulgence if they fell from grace and vowed to serve him. Four high-ranking demons, one from each of the four most powerful clans in the Underworld, also joined Mathius’s clan, which he’d named the Servants. Together, these twelve Servants became known as the Dominus Ring, with Mathius being the Divine Sire.
At first, their duties were confined to collecting the most depraved souls. But without one of the Consecrated Keys, Mathius could only amass souls; he still lacked the power to recycle them into new human beings. Thirsting for the power he’d tasted as the Keeper, he tried to steal a Key, but the Order was on to him and already had hidden the Keys.
As I read on, I learned that, despite the devoted efforts of his clansmen, Mathius has yet to uncover the location of either Key. Nevertheless, he continues on his quest to regain control over the fate of humanity. He built himself an army of new recruits; however, humans, rather than immortals, have been responsible for the clan’s ever-growing numbers. That said, because Servants, and demons in general, have no souls, a human must be converted—a process that involves extracting and shredding the mortal’s soul prior to him or her serving Mathius for eternity.
The Journal went on to explain that the exact number of Servants is unknown, but the best estimates are in the low hundreds. Still, Mathius has come no closer to getting his hands on a Key. And while he’d built up his troops, he had no one to lead them. He needed generals—leaders with special skills and knowledge that would give him the tactical edge to locate a Key, lead his troops into battle, and successfully take it. For centuries, he’d been searching for the ideal candidates to lead the charge, waiting patiently, plotting but never making his move, until he found them.
“Quinn,” I gasped, knowing in my gut it was indisputably true. Mathius believed Quinn possessed special knowledge about the Shepherds because of me, as well as exceptional skills and strength because of our connection as true soul mates. Plus, Quinn had already proven himself to be braver than most. What more could Mathius want?
I wondered if Quinn was the first of the generals to be recruited. And, if so, I wondered who else was unfortunate enough to be chosen to join Mathius’s ranks.
The Journal also had an entry discussing the steps of Mathius’s plan to invade the “topsoil,” or the human-populated layer of the Earth, in more detail. The Dominus Ring developed a global gambling enterprise through which demons could easily find potential new recruits with large enough gambling debts that they could easily be “swayed” to do the demons’ bidding.
Brady, I said to myself, shaking my head. His gambling problem had put him in debt with bookies and casinos many times in the past. The Servants probably had him right where they wanted him well before they even connected the dots and discovered he was Quinn’s brother.
Mathius also began targeting any human who might stand in the way of his quest for more power—either by killing or converting them. It was unclear from the Journal how or why the Servants identified certain humans or how the demons were able to manipulate their targets’ fates without the Three Sisters noticing, but there was always a human to target—one the Servants undoubtedly would find and attack.
In response, the Order created Shepherds to stop the Servants from targeting humans. Shepherds quickly honed their skills and were
successful in saving many lives. Nevertheless, it soon became apparent that the number of humans being targeted by the Servants far exceeded the number of Shepherds available to protect them. So Watchers were also created to tie up any loose ends Shepherds may have left behind when jumping from assignment to assignment. The Watchers also made sure the Servants were upholding their end of the Agreement.
The Agreement, entered into by the Servants and Shepherds, was a necessity due to the Servants’ complete disregard for humanity, leaving behind a path of utter destruction and devastation. Mathius refused to stop the mass targeting, so the Shepherds kidnapped three members of the Dominus Ring, holding them hostage. In response, Mathius threatened to go on a killing spree, unleashing his army of Servants on the topsoil to wreak havoc. In the end, a compromise was reached. In exchange for the release of his three clansmen, Mathius agreed to call off the killing spree and exercise more restraint when attacking intended victims in the future—as long as he got to define what “exercise more restraint” meant. In the end, the Shepherds reluctantly agreed to give the Servants three separate chances to target their victims. But, should a human survive the three attacks, the Servants would no longer be permitted to pursue that target. The human was untouchable, free to live out his or her days without any further interference from the demons. This was the birth of the Curse of Three. The Curse has remained in place since its inception—and would continue to be honored as long as neither side breached the terms of the Agreement.
Other Journal entries described dozens of the Servants’ known rituals and, whenever available, included the Servants’ chants and spells. Demonic conversion was one of the rituals described in detail.
Tartuf had described enough of the ceremony to me to make me think twice about reading this section, but my fear for Quinn’s safety compelled me to continue. It didn’t take long for me to realize Tartuf had given me the sugarcoated version. Each step I read was worse than the last. The beatings, the branding, the bloodletting to drain the Chosen of nearly all blood, was only the beginning. Then came the soul extraction, which could only occur once the human was pierced by a “spear of light,” exposing the soul so it could be removed and shredded.
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