Jack Templar and the Monster Hunter Academy: The Templar Chronicles: Book 2 (12 page)

I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. “It was better than just sitting around. Even if I didn’t find anything, it was better than not trying.”

Aquinas beamed. “That’s the first sensible thing you’ve said all night. Are you going to try your tea? It’s quite good.”

I humored her and lifted the steaming cup to my lips. It was a strong mint flavor mixed with flowery notes I didn’t recognize. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, it was really tasty. I looked up and Aquinas smiled, knowing I was trying to hide how much I enjoyed it.

“Perhaps I was wrong to wait,” Aquinas said. “You are every bit as impetuous as your father was.” I felt a surge of pride to be compared to my father. Aquinas noticed and squinted her eyes at me. “You do know what impetuous means, don’t you? Rash, prone to act without thinking it through…”

“I guess it’s just in my blood,” I said.

A dark sadness came over Aquinas, both on her face and in the way her shoulders drooped forward. “Yes,” she agreed, “perhaps it is.”

“So will you tell me? Will you explain where I came from? Eva told me only bits and pieces. She said I would learn the rest here. I’m ready.”

Aquinas arched an eyebrow at me. “Ready? How could you possibly know if you’re ready?”

I leaned in close and fixed my eyes on hers. “Try me,” I said.

Aquinas nodded and closed her eyes as if reading a book only she could see. Then she started to speak:

“The war between Man and Monster is as old as Man himself. Since the days when humankind first descended from the trees and began to group together in tribes, the Creach have hunted them as prey. In the earliest of days, when Man only existed in small pockets of the world, we were of no special significance to the Creach. We were simply another animal on which they feasted. But over time humans rose to prominence and became, for better or for worse, the organizing force on the planet. 

Even then, the Creach ignored the rise of Man and continued to hunt him for sport and for sustenance.” She pointed to the rows of books around her. “As evidence, the earliest writings in literature the world over contain references to monsters. It’s a wonder that the modern world is able to wash away these facts as mere coincidence, to avoid facing the truth. Think of it. Ancient writings from every continent describe demons who shift their shapes from man to wolf, tell of monsters who drink the blood of their victims, of corpses that rise from the dead, harpies and centaurs and trolls. All from humans who had no communication with one another for literally centuries after these accounts were written. And yet the modern world calls this simply a coincidence, a shared universal imagination. When the war comes, it will be looked back upon as the greatest collective state of denial in the history of the world.”

“When what war comes?” I asked.

Aquinas waved her hands in the air. “I’m getting ahead of myself. You want to know the whole story. More tea?”

I shook my head and waited for her to continue.

“Man turned out to be an organized and social creature. It wasn’t long before the simple tribes and villages turned into towns and bustling cities. Pretty soon, we had become hopelessly entangled in all the trappings of modern civilization.”

“You mean like laws?” I asked.

“Laws, yes; but also the ability to wage war,” Aquinas said. “Whether living beside the Nile in Egypt, the Euphrates in Sumaria or the Yangzte in China, Man used his energies to create weapons, form armies and set out to conquer lands through force.”

“What does that have to do with the Creach?” I asked, feeling like I was back in one of my classrooms at Sunnyvale Middle School. I guess the difference was that this history lesson promised to teach me things very few people knew about.

“While Man organized himself into complex and organized forms of society, the Creach did not. Instead, they preferred to stay alone or in small groups, unwilling to cede control to any centralized power.

“You see, they were too slow to realize the true nature of men and severely underestimated how quickly he would expand his footprint upon the Earth. He would never be content to share the world, his drive to dominate was more than simply a desire; it was his single organizing principle. Nothing would stand in his way and stop him from building greater cities, damming the rivers, cutting down the great forests and asserting dominion over all the creatures of the Earth. But beyond this insatiable desire to control the world, men also wanted to control one another. Soon, all of their energies turned to developing better weapons and waging larger wars.

“Once able to choose their human prey at will, the Creach found themselves relegated to the dark corners of a world made for and controlled by men. To appear in the open risked becoming the hunted instead of the hunter. Where once they controlled the world with fear, they were now made to live in shadows, by necessity becoming more myth than reality.”

“Until someone organized them,” I said.

“Not someone,” Aquinas intoned. “Some
thing
. A dark power rose up in the form of a vampire, one you have already met, I think.”

“Ren Lucre,” I whispered, shivering at the sound of his name on my lips.

Aquinas nodded. “Yes. Ren Lucre. In the year 999, he was a French nobleman with a bold future ahead of him. A brilliant mind, he was well-educated and sophisticated, experienced in the courts of Europe which were a front row seat in the practical application of power. This was an age of turmoil and superstition in all of Europe, but especially in France. Everyone, from the leaders of the churches to the peasants in the fields, feared that the year 1000 marked the end of the world. Chaos and violence raged as the date grew closer. Society broke down, threatening the aristocracy of which Ren Lucre was a part.

“Fearing for the lives of his family both from the End of Times and the hordes of peasants roving the countryside, Ren Lucre turned his intellect to the study of the dark powers, especially in anything to do with the secrets of immortality. With the turn of the millennium fast approaching, he discreetly put out word of an enormous reward for a live vampire specimen. He didn’t have to wait long.”

“People were able to capture one?” I asked.

“No, of course not. But, hearing of this strange lord’s reward, a powerful vampire appeared at Ren Lucre’s castle one day, curious as to what kind of man would seek out a vampire so aggressively. The old vampire had come with every intention of killing Ren Lucre; instead they sat and talked for three straight days. As is often the case with important moments in history, Fate played a role in what happened next. On the eve of the old vampire’s visit, Ren Lucre’s wife gave birth to their sixth child, a boy, finally after five daughters. But the child struggled and died in his father’s arms hours after birth, breaking Ren Lucre’s heart forever. As if this weren’t enough, his wife was on the edge of death herself. It was under these conditions, wracked with grief for his son, his wife lying on her death bed and surrounded by a world headed to chaos, that Ren Lucre made the most horrific of decisions.”

“To become a vampire,” I said.

“Yes, but not only for himself. He knew he could never again survive the heartbreak of losing another child.”

“He turned them all turn into vampires,” I whispered.

“And gained immortality for the simple price of their souls. His wife and five daughters never had a choice in the matter.”

“And what of the old vampire, the one who turned them into vampires in the first place?”

“His name remains unknown and there is no further reference to him in the written or oral histories of the time. We assumed he was killed, perhaps by Ren Lucre himself during his rise to power. Perhaps by the first members of the Black Guard: your ancestors.”

I felt a stir of excitement at the words. It seemed too distant and incredible to be true, but Aquinas said the words with such certainty that I suddenly felt that they must be. “Tell me about them. The first Black Guard.”

Aquinas looked at a clock on the wall and glanced outside at the lightening sky. “It will be morning soon and you have a full day of training ahead of you. Why don’t you come back tonight and we will continue?”

I started to object but Aquinas was already on her feet and walking away from me. I got the sense that this wasn’t a subject up for discussion. “Thanks,” I called after her. “Thank you for taking the time.”

She turned to the side so that her face was in profile. She gave me a little nod, then kept walking. I turned to leave.

“Oh Jack,” she called out. “You can use the stairs next time. It’s a bit easier that way.”

I smiled. “Will do. Goodnight.”

I left through the front door and walked down the wide staircase that zigzagged back down to the ground level. The Academy was stirring. I saw steam and smoke coming from the kitchens where the Ratlings were preparing the day’s breakfast. I stretched and considered going back to my bunk to catch the last few minutes of sleep but decided against it. My head was too full of images from the story Aquinas had told me. I was desperate to know the next part of the tale but knew I needed to get through the day first.

I walked up to the battlement wall and walked up the rough cut steps to the sentry positions on the top. From here, I had a great view of the forest, where wisps of fog drifted lazily among the pines. Somewhere far down the valley, a lone wolf howled. I wondered if it was Tiberon. So many mysteries surrounded this place that I wondered if I would ever get to the bottom of them.

The breakfast bell rang behind me and I turned to see the young hunters come out of the dorms to start another day of training. I looked back out to the forest and wondered if we were really any kind of match for the enemy we were training to fight. I hoped we would never have to find out. But in my heart, I knew this was a false hope. The war was coming, just as Aquinas had said. That much was certain. The war was definitely coming. Somehow, I could feel it in my blood.

“Hey, why didn’t you wake me up?” Will complained to me the second he saw me in the breakfast line.

I thanked the young Ratling who scooped a heaping mound of eggs on my plate and drew Will away from the other hunters who stood there. “Not so loud,” I murmured.

“Did you go without me?” Will demanded. “You did, didn’t you? Why would you do that?”

“Because you were right yesterday when you said this was the perfect place for you,” I said. “The last thing I wanted to do was have you get caught and get you kicked out.”

The image of being sent packing out through the Academy front gate was enough to settle Will down. We found our table and hunched close together over our breakfast. “So, did you find out anything?”

“More than you could imagine.” I told him everything from the night before, going over every detail. I wanted to share it with him but I also wanted to say it all out loud so I didn’t forget anything. The entire night had the fuzzy feeling of a dream and I didn’t want it to start to fade away in the morning sun.

When I finished, Will was awestruck. “So, you’re going back tonight?”

“Absolutely,” I said. “I mean, she’s obviously using this as a way to keep me in line, but this is the reason I came here.”

“The reason
we
came here,” Will corrected me. “Let’s get one thing straight— I’m here to help you find your dad. Yeah, I like it here, but if it comes down to it, I’m with you.”

“Uh oh,” said a voice behind us. “This sounds serious.”

We both spun around and saw Eva standing there.

“How do you do that? You’re so sneaky,” said Will.

“If you had paid attention in my class yesterday, you would have learned how,” Eva said.

“Are you allowed to be over here? I thought instructors don’t mingle with us little guys,” I said, coming across colder than I intended.

Eva nodded at our empty table. “Speaking of mingling, I can see you’re doing a great job making new friends.”

“I’m not here to make friends,” I said.

Eva stared me down, not liking my tone. “Then I guess you don’t need my help, because you’re doing great.”

“Eva!” Daniel called from the instructor’s table.

I looked away. “Speaking of friends, you have great taste in them, by the way.”

“Yeah, well, I thought I did,” Eva said, looking more angry than hurt.

Will looked back and forth between us like he was watching his parents fight. “Whoa, c’mon guys. What’s going on here? Will the two of you stop acting like a couple of babies? What is this?”

“No, it’s OK,” said Eva. “Jack’s right. Instructors aren’t supposed to socialize with newbie hunters who don’t know a thing about real monster hunting. By the way, great job yesterday, Will. The other instructors said you really stood out.”

“Really?” Will asked, beaming.

“Yeah, you’re obviously here to learn and get better. I wish I could say the same about the both of you.” Eva walked away.

When Will turned back to me, he tried to stifle his smile that had been pasted to his face since receiving Eva’s compliment. “Why were you so mean to her?” he asked. “She was trying to be cool by coming over here.”

I felt a little pang of guilt but it quickly went away when I glanced over and saw Daniel drape his arm around her as she sat down at the instructor’s table.

“Oh, I get it,” Will said. “Holy crap. You’re jealous.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Jealous of what?” I asked.

But Will just grinned. He had just solved a major puzzle. He stood up with his now empty plate. “If you want to play it cool, that’s fine with me,” he said. “But I’ve known you since before we could ride bikes. You can’t pull one over on me.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. Unconsciously, I glanced over at Eva and Daniel. I really did hate seeing them together. Will stuck his hand in front of my face, cutting off my line of sight.

“Then you won’t mind if I do this,” Will said. “Or maybe go over and tell Eva you’re sorry for being a jerk and that…ouch!”

Will rubbed his shoulder where I had just punched him.

“All right, enough,” I said. “Come on, let’s get a move on. The class bell is going to ring any second.”