Ascension (Demon's Grail Book 1)

by Amy Cross

  “The future.”

  I feel a shiver pass through my body. “Am I mentioned in the second testament?”

  He pauses again. “That's a distinct possibility,” he says finally, evasively.

  “And let me guess,” I continue. “There's another prophecy, isn't there?”

  “That is another distinct possibility.”

  “About Karakh.”

  At this, he falls silent for a moment. I'd like to think, from the look in his eyes, that he knows there's no point lying to me anymore. Either that, or he's simply trying to come up with more lies.

  “I'm going to die at Karakh, aren't I?” I ask finally.

  “Abby -”

  “There's a prophecy,” I continue, “that states I'll end up at the palace of the spiders one day, and I'll die there. Don't even deny it, I heard about it before but I assumed it was a lie. Now I'm starting to realize that it's true.”

  He shifts uncomfortably in his seat. “The second testament of the Book of Gothos says a lot of things -”

  “Including that I'll die at Karakh.”

  He pauses again, and then finally he nods. “Yes. It does say that. Even your father was never given access to the second testament, Abby. If he'd known what it says, he might never have played his role in the original prophecy.”

  “So he was manipulated?”

  “He was helped to make the right choices.”

  I take a deep breath. “When is this all supposed to happen?”

  “I'm afraid the book doesn't say.”

  “So it could be today, it could be tomorrow, it could be next week or next year or...” I take a deep breath. “What if I decide not to go? What if I refuse?”

  “It's a prophecy, so -”

  “So it has to come true?”

  “No-one can fight these things, Abby. Your father learned that the hard way. His entire life was a text-book example of how futile it is to fight one's fate.”

  “I'm not my father.”

  “No, but you're subject to the same forces.” He opens the front of the first testament and flicks through a few of the pages. “I fear Karakh is going to be found, regardless of what we do. There have long been rumors that spiders would return one day to reclaim their ancestral home. There is much that is mentioned in the second testament. Its secrets are known to very few people.”

  “I think it's about time they were known to me,” I reply, “seeing as how I'm apparently mentioned in it.”

  He hesitates, and I can tell that he's trying to work out exactly how much he needs to tell me. He wants to shut me up, to get me out of his way, and I can't shake the feeling that he's hiding something else.

  “So I'll ask you again,” I say finally. “Why did spiders come and try to kill me? If they'd succeeded, they'd have lost their chance to find their palace unless...” I wait for his reaction, and I can tell he's feeling increasingly uncomfortable. “Unless there's someone else out there who knows how to find Karakh,” I continue, leaning toward him, “and -”

  “Abby -”

  “But there can't be!” I add, interrupting him. “There can't, because my father was the only one who knew where it had been hidden, and the Book of Gothos specifically states that he passed that knowledge only through his bloodline, only through my mother. Or is that a lie?”

  “No, that's true.”

  “Then why did they try to kill me?” I ask, unable to hide my frustration. “It doesn't make sense, it's not like there can be anyone else out there who has this knowledge! I think I'd know if I had a brother or a sister, or if -”

  A faint flicker crosses his face.

  I feel a shiver of doubt in my chest.

  “Absalom,” I say finally, my voice trembling with fear, “I'd know if I had a brother or a sister... Wouldn't I?”

  He takes a sip of tea, clearly trying to buy himself some time.

  “Tell me what's really happening,” I continue, filled with such anger that I'm not sure I can hold back for much longer, “or I'll find a way to make you tell me.”

  “It's complicated, Abby.”

  “It's true,” I whisper, taking a deep breath. “You weren't hiding the second testament from me because it mentions my death at Karakh, you were hiding it from me because it mentions a brother or a sister, someone else who was born to Patrick and Sophie, but...” For a moment, the possibility feels too vast, too enormous, to ever be true. “How? When?”

  We sit in silence for a moment.

  “Tell me!” I say firmly.

  “I re-read the second testament after our previous conversation,” he explains. “In light of certain new information, I realized that some of the earlier interpretations were wrong and -”

  “Tell me!” I shout.

  “You have a twin brother,” he replies cautiously, “but in all honesty, I knew nothing about him until a few days ago. I knew nothing about the return of the spiders, either. The truth, Abby, is that the second testament of Gothos was written at the very end of the war, when Gothos himself was a frail, ailing old man. Most of what he wrote in the second testament is gibberish, our scholars have been over it time and again and they've always determined that he was suffering from false visions. We knew some of it had to be true, but picking out those strands from the rest was deemed to be an impossible task.”

  “I have a brother?” I reply, feeling as if I might throw up at any moment.

  “You have a brother.”

  “A real brother?” I stammer. “I mean, I know my father tried to create other children before he met my mother. There was Twomoney, there was Gwendoline, I know there were others...”

  “They were nothing more than failed experiments,” he replies. “It was the children born to Patrick and Sophie who continued the bloodline in the strongest manner possible, and that means you and your twin. The information about Karakh was passed to both of you in the womb, which means that if the spiders changed their mind and decided to kill you...”

  “They must have learned about my brother,” I whisper, “and they think they can find him.”

  “I imagine the situation is a little more advanced than that,” he replies. “The stakes are high, so if they moved against you I can only assume that they have found him.”

  “Where?”

  “I'm still putting out feelers, but given the speed with which things are happening, I imagine he must have been close, perhaps even in this city.”

  “I can't have had a brother in New York all this time,” I reply. “I'd have known!”

  “Not necessarily. If he himself didn't know the truth, that side of his soul might well have remained repressed. You must remember, Abby, that this brother of yours was hidden from everyone, even from your father. While you were struggling with everything that happened to you as a child, your brother was most likely living a normal, boring life somewhere, completely unaware of his lineage until the spiders began to stir events.”

  “I have to find him,” I tell him, getting to my feet. “If the spiders are after him -”

  “They already have him,” he continues, interrupting me. “I doubt they'd decide to kill you before they were certain they'd secured their alternative source of information.”

  For a moment, all I can do is think about the possibility that there might be someone else out there like me, someone with the same family, the same background, the same human and vampire genes mixed together. When I was a teenager, I was given a very rapid and very painful introduction to this strange new world, and somehow I managed to survive despite the best efforts of people like Benjamin and the Watchers. If I have a brother, and if he's been taken by spiders, he must be terrified. Finally, maybe for the first time since my father died, I understand exactly what I have to do.

  “Abby,” Absalom says as I head toward the door, “where are you going?”

  “Where do you think? I'm going to find my brother.”

  “You're not equipped to do that.”

  “Then I'll equip myself.”r />
  “You have no training!”

  “I'll pick it up.”

  “You need help,” he says firmly. “You've bumbled along fairly well until this point, but frankly your skill-set is abysmal.”

  “I'll be -”

  “You'll be slaughtered!”

  I stop and turn to him.

  “I fought in the wars, Abby,” he continues, stepping closer. “I fought alongside your father. I don't mean to make it sound as if I was some great warrior. Nothing could be further from the truth, I was just one vampire among millions, but somehow I was also one of the few who survived. I also happen to have seen what the spiders can do, and I know for certain that you'd lose in a fight with any of them. Any vampire would, without training.”

  “I have to try.”

  “No, you have to succeed. And for that to happen, you have to learn fast.” He pauses. “I can teach you what you need to know, at least to begin with, if you're willing to accept a little help. There are others who can train you more fully, but I can get things started. Think of it as a crash-course.”

  I pause for a moment, desperate to turn him down and get going, but at the same time I know deep down that he's right. I hated the idea of accepting help from Mark, but that was because of the personal angle; with Absalom, it's purely professional.

  “Twenty-four hours,” I say finally, “and then I have to go and find my brother.”

  He nods. “I can teach you a lot in twenty-four hours.”

  “And you also have to let me see the second testament of the Book of Gothos.”

  “I really don't think it's a good idea to read a book that foretells your own death.”

  “I really don't think it's a good idea to try and stop me,” I reply firmly, stepping toward him. “So where do we start with this training?”

  Emilia

  As soon as I step into the antechamber, I can feel his presence. There's a kind of darkness twisting in the air, already nudging at the edges of my soul as it flickers from one world to the next. I make my way across the cold stone floor until I reach the steps that lead to the altar, and there I kneel, waiting to be addressed.

  I must show no fear.

  No weakness.

  No failings.

  Keller was merciful. He understands that I am not perfect, that I still have so much to learn. Father, on the other hand, expects me to be something more than I can even imagine; he wants me to shadow him, to become like him, and to one day take my place at his side once we lead our species back to Karakh. He has already reached out to me several times across the vast and silent void, and I must show him that I'm worthy of his time.

  As I wait, I realize I can hear the voices in my head, voices that drift along with father.

  Arguing.

  Questioning.

  Shouting.

  Father is close now, but he seems not to have noticed me yet. Instead, he's debating the situation with the elders, most likely because once again they doubt his plans. I wish they could see that Father is the only one who can ever lead the spiders back to our ancestral home; I wish they could have true faith in his actions, the way I -

  Suddenly I feel a shudder as I realize that he has become aware of my presence. With my eyes closed, I sense him coming closer until his breath causes my soul to tremble.

  “I hear grave reports,” his voice whispers finally, curling through my mind as he reaches out to me from that other place, the place where he remains trapped for now. “Keller fears you are straying from the true path, Emilia. He has confided some of these concerns in me, but I sense that he has not told me the full extent of his doubts. He wishes to protect you, but tell me, why have you not already extracted the necessary information from the vampire?”

  “I'm close,” I reply, my voice trembling with fear. “I'm so close, I can almost -”

  “Liar!” his voice booms, accompanied by a sharp pain that ripples through my head.

  Gasping, I lean forward on my hands and knees, waiting as the pain crackles and fades. No matter how much that might have hurt, I know that it's only a fraction of the agony Father can deliver.

  “She's too weak,” another voice whispers in the distance. One of the other spiders lost in the void, perhaps a member of my father's imperial council.

  “She will fail us,” adds another.

  “The vampire is a low and wretched creature,” my father's voice continues finally, sounding a little calmer now. “All vampires are like this, but it is especially true of one that has been contaminated by aspects of the human species. It is unholy and immoral for one such as us, Emilia, to feel any sympathy or kinship with these beasts. We must simply ignore them where possible, kill them where necessary, and use them on the rare occasions when they possess anything of value.”

  “Yes, Father,” I whisper.

  “Have you forgotten your history lessons?”

  “No, Father. Never.”

  “Have you forgotten how the vampires rose up against us all those years ago? We were not the ones who struck first, Emilia. They came for us, they deemed the great spiders of old to have become decadent and mad, and they thought they had the right to interfere with our species. If you feel even the slightest twinge of empathy for these miserable wretches, you are no daughter of mine and you shall be cast out from our company and left to die alone.”

  “No, Father, please -”

  “Don't beg,” he sneers. “No daughter of mine shall ever beg for her life.”

  “We must find another,” one of the other voices urges him. “She is a wretched fool.”

  “No,” I say firmly, “I'm not weak and I'm not a fool. I'm sorry, Father, I -” Realizing that I should not apologize either, I take a moment to regather my thoughts. “Keller wanted to cut into the vampire's mind and extract the information that way,” I explain, “but I felt it would be better to use more traditional methods. After all, the information must come with context, and I fear that Keller's approach would perhaps leave us with the information itself but no means to understand or use it.” I wait for a reply, but although I can tell Father is listening to me, he seems content to let me explain myself. For now, at least. “Besides,” I add cautiously, “by doing it this way, the vampire feels a great deal more pain. That is a good thing, is it not?”

  “And does his pain give you pleasure?” Father asks.

  “It does.”

  “Does this pleasure fill your body with joy and your soul with meaning?”

  “It does.”

  He pauses, as other voices continue to whisper in the background, no doubt discussing my many flaws. “You are in some ways still a child,” Father continues finally. “You were born long after the war, Emilia, and perhaps you can never truly know what it was like for the spider race to fight for its survival in the face of marauding vampire hordes. I once thought that if you learned the history of our species, you would come to know what it was like for me, and for those who fought alongside me, but now I feel I was mistaken. It is perhaps enough that you know our history, and instead your own hatred for the vampire race must grow organically through your contact with them.”

  “I hate every vampire,” I whisper. “I am repulsed by their existence.”

  “And if I dug deep into your heart and soul,” he continues, “would I find those words to be true? Or would I find that you are merely saying them in the hope that they will come true in time?”

  “I mean everything I say,” I tell him. “As soon as I have spoken with you here, I intend to go back to the vampire Jonathan and finish the job, and then I intend to end his miserable life.” I pause for a moment, hoping to find a way to further prove my worth. “Keller let Abigail Hart slip away,” I add finally. “I was thinking that perhaps I should go and kill her, just to be certain that the prophecy of her journey to Karakh cannot be fulfilled.”

  “There will be time enough for that later,” he replies. “Now you must focus on extracting the information from the vampire you have captured, and th
en you must come to me, and then you shall journey to Karakh so that I might be able to cross back through into your world. And Emilia...”

  I wait for him to continue.

  “Yes, Father?”

  Suddenly my head is gripped by the most unfathomable pain, rippling through my thoughts and causing me to fall onto my side, gasping for air. My entire body tenses as I try to reach up and take my head in my hands, but I can barely even move and as all thoughts are driven from my mind I feel as if I'm about to be torn to shreds. I want to cry out, to ask Father why he's punishing me, why he has chosen to end my life, but I can't get the words out. Finally, just as quickly as the pain came, it subsides and I'm left gasping breathlessly on the floor, with every nerve-ending in my body still tingling.

  “Do not disappoint me again,” Father says firmly. “We are close to reclaiming Karakh, Emilia. If you think you have hidden the imperfections in your soul from me, you are wrong. Next time we speak, I must sense genuine improvements or I will have no choice but to dispose of you. I will not be embarrassed by my only child.”

  “I would never do that to you,” I stammer. “Father, please...”

  “Some of the others here doubt you,” he continues, “but I am giving you one final chance. Go to the vampire and gain the knowledge we need. You know what will happen if you fail.”

  “She will fail us,” one of the other voices whispers as it fades away. “She is too weak...”

  As ripples of pain still flash through my body, I realize that Father's presence has left the room, and the other voices have gone with him. It takes a moment before I'm able to sit up, and I can't shake a sense of great shame. I disappointed Father and made him question my resolve, but now I must go and get the job done. No more mercy. No more sympathy for the wretched creature. Getting to my feet, I limp toward the door, determined to go and tear the truth about Karakh from the vampire's mind. As I reach the next corridor, however, I realize I can hear Keller talking to someone in his study, and when I get to the door I feel a shiver as I realize he's in communion with Father.

  “I understand your doubts,” he says calmly, “but Your Highness, I have worked with your daughter for many years now and I feel she is stronger than you realize.”