“He is immune to alteration and other forms of Light manipulation,” she explained. “His senses are sharper, his body stronger, and his impaired eyesight has been repaired.”
The way she listed Jackson’s improvements made him sound like a super-soldier. I could see how that was a problem for the Naturals. If demons were out there altering human DNA through simple possession, then the balance could tip in their favor big time.
“What does this mean?” I asked. “If possession can turn humans… If it can alter their minds…”
Greer smiled, her impossible beauty masking her underlying emotions. “Don’t fret, Scarlett,” she said. “Brax, Aldrich, and I are investigating the matter. There’s nothing to worry about.”
I didn’t believe her for one second, but I was just the new kid, and I was now on probation to boot.
“Before you leave, I have a gift for you.”
“I thought I was in trouble,” I drawled. “Now I get presents?”
Greer crossed the room to a table I hadn’t noticed before and picked up a black book. She smoothed her palm over the cover as if she was blessing the contents. When she stood in front of the Codex once more, she handed the tome to me.
“If you’re to understand our ways completely, then you should have your own Codex.”
Taking the book from her, I opened it and frowned. It wasn’t the same as the original in the case, but Wilder had told me it contained the complete history of the Naturals after the fall of Camelot. There was no ebb of Light fused within its pages, it just had that new book smell.
I glanced over the passage I’d opened the book to. Arthur sent the twelve Naturals forth in search of Arondight. Lancelot rode south, for he’d held the blade before. Galahad rode north, his blood singing him a different story. Another omen.
I caressed my thumb over the leather cover and snapped the book shut.
“Thank you,” I said, “for not kicking me out of the Sanctum.”
“Not on a first offence,” Greer replied. “Though, I sincerely hope there isn’t a next time, Scarlett.”
I nodded, holding the book close. I studied the Codex—the real Codex—and felt an urge to go flip through its pages. Wilder told me since Greer was the protector, she was the only one who could read from it, let alone touch the thing. Still, the more I focused, the more I was drawn towards it.
The Codex… it… Was it calling me?
“One day,” Greer said, studying me closely. “Perhaps you will look upon it when you understand.”
I looked at the stairs, the Light in the room starting to weigh heavily on my shoulders. “Am I dismissed?”
She nodded.
Clutching my copy of the Codex, I clattered down the stairs, a strange sensation beating in my heart.
18
I didn’t go back to the gym straight away.
Clutching the copy of the Codex Greer had given me, I wandered through the hallways. I hadn’t been kicked out, but I didn’t feel any better about what had happened. No, I felt worse.
Stopping in front of a marble sculpture of the Lady of the Lake, I sighed. Jackson was mad at me, Wilder’s opinion wasn’t much better, Romy and Martin probably thought I was a nightmare, and that wasn’t even counting all the other things wrong with me. The only common denominator in all of this mess was Scarlett Ravenwood.
Opening my copy of the Codex, I flipped through the pages. Greer was always consulting the original, maybe it could help me make sense of everything. Understanding what the Naturals went through at the cataclysm might be a good place to begin.
Scanning the blocks of text, I was surprised at what it revealed. I kind of expected the Codex to be like the Bible, full of verses and metaphoric language, but it was like reading a non-fiction book, complete with pictures.
Hand-drawn images of Naturals in various scenes were laced amongst the text. Some pages appeared to be Medieval in design, then evolved through the ages—Renaissance, Impressionist, Art Deco. Checking the last few pages, they all ended sometime around the 1940s. Nothing since.
The Codex contained eyewitness accounts, discoveries, personal struggles, and everything in between. How did Greer consult this? It was like one giant logbook and without the Light the original emitted, I wasn’t sure what to do with it. History wasn’t my best subject at school, even though I knew humanity could learn a lot from their past mistakes. Teachers always wanted me to memorise dates, but numbers and I didn’t mix.
Turning back to the first page, I read, We were born out of the ashes of Camelot… It seemed like a lot to live up to.
I snapped the book closed with a frustrated sigh and glanced up at the blank marble eyes of the Lady of the Lake. She stared back at me, her stone arm lifting a stone Arondight towards the ceiling. I wondered if she ever felt this rotten.
The dull sound of people talking echoed down the hallway and I turned. A group of Naturals rounded the corner, their black uniforms strange against the refined manor house backdrop of the Sanctum. Recognising Romy amongst them, I swallowed hard.
They were laughing about something, and for a moment I thought it might’ve been gossip about last night, but I shook my head. Best not to jump to conclusions.
Romy’s expression turned sour when she saw me, and I shuffled from foot to foot. The other Naturals glanced at me and kept walking, but she hung back, her usual friendly demeanour nowhere to be found.
“Romy, I…” I trailed off, knowing anything I said was going to be lame to the extreme.
“You disrespected everything the Naturals stand for,” she said, staring at me with hard eyes. “We don’t endanger others, and we especially don’t allow our personal feelings to cloud our mission.”
“I didn’t expect… I didn’t…” I trailed off feeling like I was a five-year-old with a trembling bottom lip, not a twenty-six-year-old woman who should be trying to make up for her massive cock up.
“Look at it this way, Scarlett. There are so few of us left, that even the loss of one life grossly tips the balance towards the Darkness. If there’s not enough of us left to fight, then the demons win and our struggle has been for nothing.”
I lowered my head, my cheeks flaming.
“Read that,” she said, gesturing to the Codex. “You might learn something about camaraderie.”
“Romy! Are you coming or what?”
She glanced down the hall as a Natural I hadn’t met before waved at her. Glancing at me one more time, she turned and strode away, leaving me standing beside the marble statue, feeling like I was two feet tall. It was David Ivan and the devil worship gossip all over again.
I watched Romy walk away and didn’t turn until she’d disappeared around the corner. Then, I was alone again, the silence of the empty Sanctum deafening.
Sniffing, I walked the opposite direction, avoiding wherever it was Romy was headed towards. Had I blown my one and only opportunity to fit in? I’d never really belonged anywhere, and now I knew I was different, I’d hoped this place was it. Maybe it was a case of too little, too late. I was too old to become a Natural and I even then I was too weird. When would I catch a break?
My boots tapped on metal and I looked up. I’d been so wrapped up in my wallowing that I hadn’t realised I’d found my way back to the vaults. Peering into the room Ramona had turned into a laboratory, I frowned. It was empty—no equipment or tables were inside, and there were no signs to say there ever had been. Sniffing, I could detect a slight metallic scent, almost as if someone had been smelting iron.
The smell conjured up the image of the cold iron daggers and I wondered where those were made. Surely not inside the Sanctum.
Leaving the empty room, I went back out into the hall. I knew I should’ve gone back to the gym by now, but I didn’t have it in me to face Wilder. The look on his face… Well, it’d been chilling how indifferent he’d been, especially after that kiss. The kiss that’d stirred my Light. I couldn’t even ask him if that was a thing now.
I peered in th
e various doors as I wandered down the metallic hallway. Behind each was a cell, much like the one Jackson had been quarantined in, with floor-to-ceiling bars and a greyish expanse of uncomfortable emptiness. There were zero prisoners in residence, which made me wonder where the Infernal was being kept.
Another door was set at the very end of the hall, and I stared at it, wondering why I’d never noticed it before. I thought about it for a moment, trying to recall if it was there the few times I’d been down to see Jackson. It was different from the others—taller, the window set above my head, and there was no door handle. Frowning, I held my hand up to the metal, pretending I knew what I was doing.
I didn’t feel anything.
It was just a door I hadn’t noticed before, unless someone was hiding its existence with Light. An illusion like the one that hid the Sanctum, maybe?
I wasn’t sure how much more trouble I could get into, so I stood up onto my tippy-toes so I could peer through the window. Catching a glimpse of Greer, I gasped, almost slipping on my backside. I fell back onto my heels and immediately propped myself back up again.
A giant glass vial sat in the centre of the room, each end capped with silver, and the Infernal swirled within. It heaved, sparking angrily as it brushed against the edges of its prison. So this was where it went.
Other instruments and equipment surrounded the vial, monitors flashing with graphs and numbers, recording data on the demon. She’d told me they’d research it to see if it was the same Infernal who’d mutated Jackson. It stood to reason they’d keep it hidden down in the vaults away from the rest of the Sanctum.
I was about to back away and leave while the going was good, but the Infernal spoke. “Arondight,” it cried in a digital-like voice. There had to be some kind of computer hooked up to it to allow the puff of smoke to speak.
“So you’ve said,” Greer declared, sounding exasperated. “Who is your master?”
“Did you like him?” the Infernal asked.
“Who?”
“The boy. The boy. I made him better.”
I stifled a gasp. Jackson. It was talking about Jackson! So, I was right after all—the same Infernal was stalking me the whole time.
I glanced over my shoulder, but thankfully, I was still alone. The metal corridor afforded nowhere to hide, so if I was stumbled upon, I was so banned for life if wasn’t even funny. Glancing back through the window, I knew I had to know what was happening. Not to satisfy my own curiosity, but to make sure Jackson got justice for what had happened to him. He might never speak to me again, but it didn’t mean I should give up.
Greer tapped her fingernail against the glass, and the Infernal rushed towards her. Nothing happened, of course. It just bounced off the smooth surface and ricocheted back and forth like an angry bee caught in a jar.
“Human Convergence,” Greer said, “that’s what you’re part of, aren’t you?”
Human Convergence? What the hell was that?
“You should know… Greer.”
“That’s a loop I haven’t been part of for a long time,” she replied. “What’s the end game, Infernal?”
“A better world,” it declared. “Better.”
“Darkness is not better,” Greer snapped. “You will tell me all you know, filth, or I will make sure it hurts.”
“Filth,” the demon chortled. “Filthy in your bed, in your body. Filthy seed in your c—”
Greer slammed her palm down onto a button, shutting off the Infernal’s foul tirade. Her head lowered, her hair hiding her expression.
Lowering myself onto my heels, I hightailed it back down the hall and out into the Sanctum, leaving the vaults behind. My head swam with new information, and I had no idea what to do with it.
Was Greer…? Was she a part of all this? Not on the side of the Naturals, but the demons? If that was true, then the Naturals were in big trouble and so was the Codex.
I wracked my brain trying to think of what I should do, but only one name came to mind.
Wilder.
Wilder would know what to do.
It was past lunchtime when I finally made it back to the gym.
Wilder had locked himself in the private room we usually trained in and was pumping iron. I edged through the door, my gaze fixed on his flexing biceps as the dumbbell went up and down.
“Wilder?”
He glanced up and glared at me. “You took your time,” he snapped.
My fingers tightened around my mass-produced copy of the Codex and I closed the door behind me.
“Something strange is going on,” I muttered.
“Something strange is always going on,” Wilder shot back.
I rolled my eyes. “I mean with Greer and the demons.”
Wilder snorted and promptly turned his back on me. He was still in a rotten mood, which wasn’t going to help what I was about to say go down any better. Maybe I should skim over the part where I spied on Greer mere hours after I’d been put on probation.
“I think that Infernal was sent out to possess people to alter their DNA on purpose,” I said. “It attacked Jackson because it knew who I was and where I’d end up.”
Wilder glanced over his shoulder and frowned. “You think it was trying to send a message?”
“They think I know where Arondight is. Attacking someone close to me is more than a show of power. Ramona stopped the mutation, but no one knows what would’ve happened if they hadn’t. What if the demons were trying to turn him? When I suggested it to Greer…” I trailed off, biting my tongue.
“Greer what?”
“She brushed me off.”
“So?” Wilder scowled and shook his head. “Greer has always had her own agenda, but she wouldn’t allow—”
“And you call me blind!” I exclaimed. “She’s hiding something, Wilder, and I don’t think it’s nice.”
He grunted, his brow creasing, and he put down the dumbbell.
“That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say? Humph.” I crossed my arms over my chest and did my best Wilder impersonation.
“You know what?” he exclaimed. “I don’t jump to conclusions. There’s a difference between suspecting and outright accusations, Scarlett.”
“Oh no, you wouldn’t dare suspect the woman you want to bang,” I drawled. “She couldn’t be dealing with demons behind all our backs. She’s far too pretty to be bad outside of bed. That’s the only place she likes to inflict pain. Smack my arse, Greer. That’s it, baby. Harder. Harder!”
“Shut up,” Wilder snapped. “You sound like a child.”
“Ever since last night, you’ve been pouting like one!”
He began to grind his teeth together.
“Listen to me,” I gritted through my teeth, “something’s going on with Greer. I overheard her talking to the Infernal Romy caught last night.”
“You overheard her?” Wilder’s eyes widened. “You’re unbelievable, Scarlett. I gather you’re on probation?”
“Yeah, but—”
“But nothing!” he exclaimed. “If you want to see out the day, you better start listening.”
It was my turn to grind my teeth together. I better start listening? The irony was outrageous.
“Greer is the protector of the Codex for a reason. It’s impossible for her to be anything else,” he went on. My hands tightened around my copy of the Codex in an attempt to control my rising anger. “There’s no way she could be working with the demons. It’s impossible. The Codex would burn it out of her the moment she touched its pages.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means Greer has to be pure of heart to even touch the Codex,” he shot back.
“I don’t believe you,” I whispered.
“You’ll have to speak up. I might have heightened senses, but I can’t hear you through your temper tantrum, Purples.”
“I said…” I gritted my teeth as my Light flared, “I don’t believe you.”
Purple light shot through my hand, burning a
hole into the gym mat between us. Wilder stared at the smoking hole, his mouth hanging open. If I’d been aiming, I would’ve seared his chest until Light burst out the other side.
“I think you better leave,” he said darkly. “Now.”
“Wilder, I…” My heart twisted and I glanced at the hole in shock. “I didn’t mean—”
“Now, Scarlett,” he barked.
Spinning on my heel, I fled the room. Rushing blindly through the Sanctum, I wasn’t sure where I was going until cold air buffeted my burning cheeks.
The roof was empty, apart from one extremely anguished Natural in training.
Above, it was abnormally clear. Winter was finally mellowing into spring, but that only meant rain was coming. I wasn’t sure which one I preferred—the constant chill or the constant drizzle England was famous for.
Sitting on the edge of the roof, I watched the sun go down, the orange orb disappearing behind the cloudbank on the horizon. It seemed like hours passed as I shivered, stewing in the juices of my own shame. I’d ruined everything. Could this day get any worse?
If Greer really was out to cause trouble, how could I prove it? The way Wilder had shot me down made me doubt the conversation I’d overheard. Maybe it was my ignorance forcing me to jump to conclusions. This world was still new.
What was Human Convergence? It sounded rather… ominous.
A screeching sound pierced the air and I slapped my hands over my ears, screwing up my face. What the hell was that? The alarms?
Scrambling away from the edge of the building, I stood, forgetting my Codex on the ground. Looking up, my mouth fell open as an enormous pillar of red light shot towards the sky, clouds billowing around it like they were circling a drain, before the beam disappeared into the upper atmosphere.
I didn’t have to be a genius to know what was happening. The Infernal was downstairs, Greer may or may not be crooked, and the demons were obsessed with finding Arondight through me. Now, it appeared they had a way in, and it was sitting in a fancy jar in the vaults. It was a perfect storm, really.
The Sanctum had been breached… big time.
Dark Descent Page 18