Jack Templar and the Monster Hunter Academy: The Templar Chronicles: Book 2 (3 page)

“OK, now what?” I shouted.

Eva stared into the fog, looking for something. “We need to find its center,” she yelled back. “It’s the only way to stop it.” She looked up and pointed to an area above us and to the right, a point that was just off the ship’s edge. I didn’t see anything at first, but then I noticed that the fog swirled around it faintly in a circular motion—it was a giant version of the vortex we had seen earlier.

“It looks like a hurricane,” T-Rex said, his hands held up to his face to protect himself from the wind.

“Is that it?” Will shouted.

“Can’t be sure,” Eva yelled. “We need to get closer and draw it out. That’s the only way to make it vulnerable.”

“Get closer?” I asked, looking up into the sky. “How do you suggest we do that?”

Eva nodded at the communications antenna on the roof of the bridge. It was constructed much like a ladder and stretched high into the sky. A red light flashed on and off at its peak, swaying to and fro as the ship rolled on the waves of the ocean. At first I thought she was kidding—then I realized she was just nuts.

“Come on,” she shouted. “I need your help if it gets angry.”

She clambered up a maintenance ladder that went from the balcony to the top of the bridge. I looked at Will and T-Rex, half-hoping they would try to talk me out of what I was about to do. But instead they both gave me a thumbs-up.

“Good luck,” Will said, just as another round of screams came up from the lower deck.  I couldn’t help but wonder what this creature would be like angry.

I climbed up the ladder to find that Eva had already started up the antenna. She shimmied up the metal girder like an acrobat, despite the spear-tipped device in place of her left hand. She paused long enough to look down at me staring at her from below.

“Come on!” she yelled.

I sheathed my sword, jumped onto the antenna and climbed. As I did, the wind picked up, whipping my clothes against me. The higher I got, the windier it became. Worse, the antenna swayed dramatically from side to side with our combined weight. I felt like I would lose my grip at any second.

The vortex swirled out from our position about twenty feet both above and away from us. Hard to spot from the balcony, it was clearly defined now, pulling fog up from the deck on one side and spitting it back out from the other.

“Hold on,” Eva said. “This might get tricky.”

She leveled her arm that was tipped with the spearhead and took aim at the vortex. Timing the sway of the antenna, she waited until we were closest to it. Then, in the split second before we went the opposite direction, she pressed a button on her wrist and the spear shot from her arm, a rope trailing behind it.

Eva’s shot was right on the mark. and the spear disappeared into the vortex. Eva pulled on the rope  and it went taut, as if the spear had hit something solid just on the other side of the wall of fog.  Then, things got crazy.

A terrific roar sounded, followed by an explosion of wind that blew out of the vortex, bending the antenna back from its sheer force. I lost my footing and clung to the metal girders with my arms as my legs flapped around in the hurricane force winds.

I heard a cry from Eva and felt her fall past me. I reached out and grabbed her, catching just enough of her shirt to divert her fall and swing her back onto the antenna.

I looked down and saw that her legs were wrapped around the antenna and she clung to the metal girders with her left arm.  Her other arm was still holding the taut rope, which seemed to be trying to tug her off the antenna and onto the hard surface below. I looked back at the vortex, where the rope disappeared into an incongruous black shape, no more than a few feet wide. .

The hurricane blast turned into a twisting wind, bashing against us from all sides. The antenna swayed back and forth, Eva and the vortex locked in a deadly game of tug of war.

I managed to hook my feet to the antenna while I unsheathed my sword. I twisted almost upside-down, trying to reach Eva.

“What are you doing?” Eva yelled over the wind.

“I have to cut the rope!” I yelled back. “It’s going to pull you off!”

“Get the center!” she yelled. “It’s unprotected! That’ll finish it! Get the center!”

I twisted back upright, sword in hand. The black mass in the center of the vortex was still a good twenty feet away, even after the antenna’s sway tipped us toward it. There was no way I’d reach it.

I heard a cry from Eva. She still had herself braced against the pull of the rope, but I could tell she wouldn’t last much longer. I knew what I had to do.

With my sword back at my side so I could climb with both hands, I worked my way up the antenna toward the blinking red light at the top. As if being buffeted by the wind howling around me wasn’t bad enough, torrents of slashing rain began to pelt me from every direction, making it hard to see and even harder to climb.

Higher and higher I climbed, the antenna’s mast, narrowing as I approached its tip. By the time I reached the red blinking light, I could easily wrap my arms around the whole of the metal pole. Good thing too, because the antenna bent back and forth so wildly that it felt like I was on the back of a bucking horse.

I followed the line of Eva’s rope and saw the point where it was attached. If I timed the sway of the antenna right, I might be able to come close. Just as I pulled out my sword to get ready, a burst of wind blew me to one side. I scrambled just to hold on. As I did, I felt the handle of my sword slip from my fingers.

“No!” I yelled as it tumbled down and disappeared into the fog below. I felt a surge of panic. I lost my sword. There was no way I could stop the Aquamorph now. Everyone on the ship was going to die. And it was all my fault.

I searched my pockets for a weapon… anything! But I came up empty-handed.

“Hey!” A voice called from below. I looked down and saw Will standing on the roof of the bridge, my sword raised over his head. “You need this?” he yelled.

I waved at him and threw my weight into the momentum of the antenna’s sway. As it dropped to its lowest point, Will threw the sword up into the air. He mistimed the toss and I had to dodge to the side to avoid being impaled. The sword clanged off the antenna, but I was able to still grab it by the handle with my free hand before it bounced into the murky waters below.

Below me, Will and T-Rex cheered.

The antenna reached the bottom of a giant sway, as far from the vortex as we were going to get. Eva cried out from the tension on the rope. I focused in on the black mass in the vortex as the antenna began its return trip in the other direction.

The wind and rain pelted me as the antenna sped toward the vortex. At the very last second, I jumped from the antenna, windmilling my arms through the air to get as much distance as possible, praying I would reach my target.

Sword out, I slashed upwards, severing the rope connected to Eva, then jammed the sword down into the center of the black mass.

BOOM!

The mass exploded and I was catapulted backward, head over heels into the night.

Luckily, I was thrown past the edge of the ship. I slammed into the water, the force of the impact knocking the air out of me.  By the time I got my wits about me, I was deep underwater. I clawed and kicked my way to the surface.

Finally, I broke the surface and gulped down mouthfuls of fresh air. As I treaded water, I looked back at the ship. A brilliant white light shone where the vortex had been. The fog covering the ship was being sucked up into the light as a high-pitched whistle filled the air.

The moment the final traces of the fog were gathered up, the light shrunk to a mere pinprick. But the whistling continued to grow louder and higher-pitched.

The point of light exploded in a grand display of fireworks with an ear-shattering sonic boom. I ducked under the water to escape the noise and when I rose back up the waves had calmed and the night was again clear. Searchlights from the trawler were activated and in a short time they had a bead on me.

By the time they dragged me on board, Eva had made her way down from the antenna and was waiting for me on the deck with T-Rex and Will.

“Dude, that was crazy!” Will cried, high-fiving me. “I mean, I could have done it a little better, but still.”

I smiled and looked at Eva. “Now you can’t tell me the Academy is going to be more intense than that.”

Eva smiled. “Yeah, I can,” she said. “But that was a good warm up. You guys better get some sleep. We’ll be there tomorrow.” She turned and walked into the ship.

“A good warm up?” Will asked, shocked. “How bad is this place going to be?”

“Don’t worry about it. She’s just trying to scare us,” I said.

Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that maybe she was telling the truth and that the Monster Hunter Academy was going to be more than I could handle.  Try as I might, I couldn’t get to sleep that night; my head was filled with images from the battle, and, worse, images of my father locked away in Ren Lucre’s dungeon. I knew the Academy was the path to finding and saving my father. No matter how hard it was, I couldn’t fail. I couldn’t afford to.

The next day was going to be one of the most interesting and impactful of my life. Not only was I going to finally reach the Monster Hunter Academy, but I was going to find out a secret about my family that I never would have guessed, and, frankly, I still can’t believe.

Eva was right. I needed a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.

Chapter Two

I
n the morning, we spotted land. This was the first time in my life that I had been out of the country and I wasn’t sure what to expect. I had images in my mind of Europe being filled with castles, ancient cathedrals and cobblestone streets. As we neared shore, all I saw was a broken-down harbor just like the one we had left behind.

Long buildings lined the wharf. Perhaps once the center of bustling activity, they were now rusting hulks with broken windows and caved-in roofs. Cranes to offload non-existent cargo sat perched at empty berths, slowly deteriorating from lack of use. There was a ship that had sunk in the harbor, just left there to rot.

Eva stood beside Will and me as the crew prepared to dock.

“Nice place,” I said.

“It’s perfect for us,” Eva said. “No one will see us here.”

“How about those guys?” Will asked, pointing to the hundreds of seagulls staring at us from the docks. “They’re just birds, right?”

“Because they’re looking at us like they’re hungry,” said T-Rex.

“Don’t worry,” Eva said. “No one knows we’re coming.”

I couldn’t shake the feeling that Eva was wrong. I could feel the Creach’s eyes everywhere, as though they could see everything we did. I could tell by how Eva squinted at the gulls that she had her own doubts.

“Come on,” she said. “Get your gear. We have a train to catch.”

We gathered our things and thanked the captain and crew for their help. Since the Aquamorph, they had kept their distance from us. Sailors were a superstitious bunch to begin with and having their ship attacked by a fog monster had made it even worse. They were nice enough, but it was clear that they were happy to be rid of us.

The four of us walked through the abandoned shipyard. I’ll be honest with you, it was super-creepy. The dilapidated buildings all had shadowy openings that could hide monsters ready to attack us. I noticed that Eva had unscrewed the regular grasping hook she used for her missing hand and replaced it with a dagger. She had felt it too. Something was wrong. I followed her lead and put my hand on my sword.

“Don’t,” she whispered. “Just keep walking. Don’t draw attention.”

“What’s going on?” Will whispered back.

“We’re being followed,” Eva replied. Will, T-Rex and I immediately scanned the buildings around us. Eva hissed at us under her breath. “You daft idiots. I said don’t draw attention.”

I faced forward, a little embarrassed. “What now?” I asked.

“Now we find out who it is,” Eva said. She smashed her foot onto a glass bottle on the ground and spread out the pieces with her toe. We turned a corner and Eva shoved us into the empty doorway of one of the buildings. Then she crouched to the ground and waited.

In less than a minute, we heard footsteps approach us—soft at first, barely discernible. Then a loud
crunch
followed as whoever was stalking us stepped onto the glass. Eva whipped around the corner and Will, T-Rex and I followed right behind.

There was no one there.

Eva glanced around, searching the closest possible hiding spaces. A little rock pinged off the top of her head. We all spun around and looked up at the roofline.

There was a boy, probably sixteen, with stiff, spiky hair and intense blue eyes, standing on the roof, making no effort to hide. He was dressed in a black outfit similar to Eva’s, but this one was more tight-fitting and showed off a muscular physique. The boy broke out into a wide smile. Eva shook her head and slid her sword back into its sheath.

“Daniel, you’re lucky you didn’t get killed,” Eva said.

“Are you kidding? Your vacation has made you soft,” Daniel replied.

“You want to play it out?” Eva asked. “See how the actual fight would go?”

The boy jumped down from the roof and landed lightly in front of us, clearly pleased with himself. “No thanks. I know when to stop. I’m not stupid.”

“The self-control is new,” Eva said. “But the self-awareness is about the same as when I left.”

Daniel leaned in to hug Eva, but she turned her body away from him. “Let me introduce you to the new recruits,” she said.

This wiped the grin off his face. He looked like he wanted to say more but turned self-conscious when he saw Will, T-Rex and I watching him. He turned toward Will. “So, you’re the great hope for the Black Guard. I’m Daniel. One of the instructors at the Academy.” He shook Will’s hand.

“Good to meet you. But the great hope, if you want to call him that, is this guy,” he said, nodding to me.

Daniel turned and looked me over. I held out my hand but he didn’t shake it. He looked disappointed. “Yes, well, if you say so.” He turned back to Eva. “Come on, we’ll just make the train if we hurry.” He grabbed Eva’s bag and walked on ahead of us.