The Eternal Tomb (15 page)

“Hey, Seb.” The Nocturnes turned to see Tyrus and Leah behind them.

“Hello, Tyrus,” said Sebastian, his tone businesslike. “Well, after all the worries and second-guessing, here we are.”

There was a humming as the elevator returned, and the black doors slid open. Sebastian started forward, but the Pyreths stepped into his path.

Sebastian nodded to the Guardians. “Let us pass, please.”

They didn't move.

“Listen, Seb,” said Tyrus awkwardly, “there's been a change of plans.”

Phlox frowned at the guards. “We're not going down,” she growled, “are we?”

“I'm afraid not,” said Tyrus. “Ravonovich wants to see you first.”

“But—” Phlox began, her voice rising.

Leah took her by the arm. “You know better than to make a scene.”

“By all means,” said Sebastian quietly, his jaw clenched.

“Come on, everyone,” said Tyrus, moving away from the elevators and down a nearby hallway.

“What's going on?” Oliver asked.

Phlox put her arm around Oliver's shoulder. “It's okay, Oliver,” she said.

But Oliver understood that it wasn't.

Chapter 12

The Last Betrayal

OLIVER, EMALIE, PHLOX,
and Sebastian were marched through a labyrinth of finely appointed halls. Tyrus and Leah were in the lead, the Pyreths in back. The pleasant music and revelry of the Ball faded behind them until the only sound was their footfalls on the deep burgundy carpet.

Tyrus opened a set of dark-wooded doors and they entered an expansive office. The entire back wall was a window looking out on the night skyline.

“Good evening, Nocturnes.” Ravonovich stood behind a wide desk, his back to them, gazing out the window.

“What's going on?” Sebastian demanded angrily.

Ravonovich turned, a grin revealing his jagged, parchment-colored teeth. “Mind your tone, Sebastian,” he said calmly. “What's going on, indeed. Why don't you ask your boy?”

“What's that supposed to mean?” asked Sebastian.

Ravonovich's eyes bore into Oliver. “Where to even begin… How about with why he was at the bus station last night? Where were you headed, Oliver?”

“Oliver, what is he talking about?” Phlox asked.

“Yes,” Ravonovich continued, “our boy Oliver was picking up right where his traitor brother left off. Bane's treachery is now yours, isn't that right? Where were you going?”

“Bane's…” Phlox began. “Oliver, what were you trying to do?”

Oliver scrambled to think of what to say, something that would be truthful enough to satisfy them without revealing everything. “I—it's the same as I told you,” said Oliver, “I was having doubts about the prophecy…”

“Sure you were.” Ravonovich smiled again. “And then you thought it over and decided that, contrary to everything you've done in this last year, you'd just kill your human friend and fulfill the prophecy after all, is that it?”

“I…yeah,” said Oliver, understanding how pathetic it sounded.

“I think you've failed to mention a few important facts, haven't you, boy?”

“I don't know—” Oliver began.

Ravonovich talked right over him. “For example, that your girlfriend hasn't been sired at all. The enchantments may have fooled the party—and your parents, who are so desperate to believe in you—but they don't fool me. You and your Orani are here for a far different purpose.”

“That's ludicrous,” Sebastian argued.

“Is it?” said Ravonovich. “Well, there's more. Yasmin,” he called. By the wall, Yasmin flicked on a television screen, and there were Oliver and Emalie, standing with Braiden Lang at the locks.

“They've plotted with our most dire enemies,” said Ravonovich, “and come here tonight to destroy the Artifact.”

“That's nonsense—” Phlox protested.

“Check her bag,” ordered Ravonovich.

Tyrus stepped dutifully over to Emalie and took her purse. Emalie didn't protest. He rooted inside and produced the brass cylinder.

“A kunai scorpion,” said Ravonovich, “given to them by the Brotherhood.”

“Oliver,” Phlox gasped, eyes wide.

“And oh, no, it doesn't end there,” said Ravonovich. “Oliver has been in contact with Bane's treachery.”

Sebastian spoke quietly now, staring at the floor. “You still haven't told us—”

Ravonovich's mouth curled in distaste. “Oliver has found his human soul.”

“What?” Phlox asked, horrified.

“Yes, Oliver's soul lingers in the world, and Bane's treachery was to summon it. Oliver was planning to flee with his soul, to
merge
with it, in an attempt to undo the prophecy.”

“
Tsss,
” Phlox hissed. Oliver couldn't believe the shame and disgust in that sound.

“Oh, yes,” said Ravonovich. “And there's even more. They were headed to the home of his
human
parents, who somehow remain alive.”

“Is this true, Oliver?” asked Sebastian, his voice flat, his eyes cold.

“It doesn't matter!” Oliver shouted desperately. “Ask him why we're not downstairs right now!”

“I think, in light of the evidence, that's obvious,” Ravonovich hissed.

“They have a backup plan!” Oliver shouted. “Alexy LeRoux. They've been prepping him since the start. They've been lying to us! I was never the last chance.”

Sebastian and Phlox stared at him for a moment, their gazes hard, and both of them looked suddenly weary, like all the energy was draining out of them. Sebastian turned slowly to Ravonovich. “Is this true?”

Ravonovich chuckled. “Of course it's true! Don't kid yourselves. Do you really think, after all of Oliver's issues, all of your family's
failings
, that we would entrust our fate solely with him?”

Phlox's eyes glowed severely. “No, of course not.”

“As well you shouldn't… Tonight will be a great night for the
vampyr
. The Anointment will proceed, but not with Oliver Nocturne.”

“So then, what will become of him?” Phlox asked, her eyes smoldering, her face tight.

“I'm afraid you know the only course of action that remains,” said Ravonovich icily. “Half-Light has tried everything in its power, spared no expense, to save Oliver Nocturne. Maybe it was the force treatments.… Perhaps they lowered Oliver's defenses, made him susceptible to the irrationalities of Finity. It is so much like a virus, after all.… But nonetheless, we have done everything we could, even protected him from his own brother, and yet the boy only becomes more of a danger to everything we have worked for. Alexy will be Anointed in his place.”

“We should take Oliver home, then,” said Phlox quietly.

“That won't be possible,” growled Ravonovich. “There can only be one demonless vampire child. Bane was old enough for us to put a demon in him, which allowed the prophecy to pass to Oliver. But Oliver is still too young for us to do the same, to pass it on to Alexy. And besides, what would the community think of such lenient treatment of a traitor?”

“What are you saying?” Sebastian asked quietly.

Ravonovich's tone suddenly became sympathetic. “Phloxiana, Sebastian, it is time for you to be free of this burden. To move on from this disappointing chapter. As I said before, Half-Light recognizes your sacrifices, your struggles, and you will be taken care of. We can help you find a human teen to sire, so that you might at least have a normal family from now until the Ascension. But first let's put this failure to rest.… Leah!”

Leah grabbed Oliver with an arm around his throat. She spun and backed up against Ravonovich's desk, facing Phlox, Sebastian, and Emalie.

“No!” Emalie lunged forward but Yasmin grabbed her in a similar hold.

“Wait!” shouted Oliver. “Mom, Dad!”

Phlox and Sebastian stared at him, their eyes glowing. “You deceived us,” said Phlox quietly.

“There, there,” said Ravonovich. “Worry not, Phloxiana. This will all be over in a moment.”

“Please,” Oliver gasped.

“The case of Oliver Nocturne is closed,” said Ravonovich. “Tyrus…”

Tyrus brushed past Sebastian and Phlox, holding a long sword made of wood. “Sorry, Seb,” he muttered.

“Mom… Dad…” Oliver croaked.

Their faces remained cold.

Then Sebastian reached for Tyrus's shoulder. “Wait,” he growled. “I'll do it.” He held out his hand. Ravonovich nodded. Tyrus handed over the sword, and Sebastian stepped toward Oliver. “All that we endured,” he hissed, “for nothing.”

Oliver struggled against Leah's arm, his feet slipping on the floor. No! It couldn't end like this!

Sebastian's shadow fell over him and he stopped. Oliver gazed up into his father's narrowed, amber-glowing eyes. His face was twisted, grimacing, as if this thing below him was his greatest shame.

Oliver remembered his dad's words in Morosia, when he'd worried his parents might slay him for seventh moon.
Oliver, we would never.
But they had come a long way since then. And maybe tonight, Oliver had finally proved to them that he was beyond saving, that he was truly a failure. “Dad…” he said quietly.

“Good-bye,” said Sebastian thickly. He raised the wooden sword.

Phlox threw a hand over her eyes and sunk away toward the wall.

Oliver wanted to cry out, to plead, but his voice was gone, his brain frozen. He thought of Nathan…of the parents he would never meet.

Sebastian lunged forward with the blade.

Oliver couldn't scream, couldn't move. Looking away, he found Emalie's face—and her wide, clear eyes were washed away in an explosion of dust.

“NO!”

The colors of the world began to fade. Emalie became a silhouette in gray and white, and the world dissolved into static. Oliver felt himself falling backward, dust all around him.
Into the drift
, he had time to think—

Then he hit the floor hard. Dust rained on top of him. Oliver wiped frantically at his stinging eyes—

Wait. He still had eyes. He still had hands to wipe them with.…

And there was no longer an arm around his neck.

Oliver scrambled to his feet to see Sebastian whirling, spinning the sword over his head, slashing at the attacking blur of Yasmin, who had a long Naginata fighting stick forming in her hands—too late. She exploded into dust.

Just as Leah had, when Sebastian had slain her instead of his son.

“Honey, look out!” Phlox yelled. She was in the corner of the room, wrenching two ancient katana swords free from a display of armor. Tyrus was rushing toward her, and in a flurry of gown she spun and delivered a powerful roundhouse kick. Tyrus hurtled backward, crashing through the giant window and toppling into the night.

Wind howled through the room.

Sebastian turned to see a Pyreth lunging, its skin cracking and beginning to radiate fire—

There was a blur of smoke and steel, and suddenly the Pyreth was flipping backward into the air, its lizard head flying free in a jet of flames. A column of smoke was re-forming behind it—Phlox, a sword gleaming in each hand.

“Here!” she shouted and tossed one into the air. Sebastian leaped upward, grabbing it, somersaulting and simultaneously evanescing into smoke. The second Pyreth barely had a moment to lunge at Phlox before Sebastian re-formed behind it. Their blades swung from opposite sides, cleaving the creature in two and clanging together in the middle. It crumbled to the ground as smoldering embers. Phlox and Sebastian gazed at one another, then turned to Oliver, both their eyes glowing more fiercely than ever before.

Oliver's eyes glowed back at them. He stared at his dust-covered, sword-wielding parents, and felt a rush inside that was…

Complicated. They had just forfeited everything for him, and it almost made him feel guilty, because he'd never really believed that they would. But then again who knew what went on in the minds of these grown-ups?

And yet Oliver did now. More than he ever had before, he knew that his parents, human or not, loved him.

“Well then.”

Phlox and Sebastian glanced behind Oliver, and the light in their eyes faded. Oliver jumped to his feet, spinning to find Ravonovich backed against the windows, with a dagger to Emalie's throat. “We'll just slay you all. It's not a problem. I can see now that, just like your son, your minds have been corrupted by this miserable Finity.” Ravonovich's hand snapped back.

“No!” Oliver shouted.

The blade plunged, but fell free. Ravonovich stiffened as the glass splintered and cracked behind him. Suddenly he fell forward, atop Emalie. She hit the floor, but Ravonovich never did, his body dissolving into silver dust. A wooden stake clattered to the ground.

Smoke poured through the shattered window, and Tyrus reappeared.

“Tyrus, thank you,” said Sebastian.

“Don't mention it,” said Tyrus, rubbing his temple where Phlox's heel had left a gash. He looked at her sorely. “I was coming over to say that I'd help.”

“Sorry,” said Phlox, “just being cautious.”

Oliver helped Emalie to her feet. “You okay?” he asked.

“Peachy,” Emalie muttered, brushing herself off. She looked down at the ash on the floor, and stamped on the pile for good measure.

“Now what?” Tyrus asked.

Sebastian and Phlox looked to Oliver. “What next, Oliver?”

Even after what had just happened, Oliver hesitated. What would they think of what he had come here to do?

“Oliver,” Phlox said, smiling tenderly. “It's okay.”

“Well,” said Oliver slowly, “Ravonovich was right. We came to destroy the Artifact, before they can summon Vyette.” Despite what they had just done, Oliver had to wonder if his parents would really go against all that they believed in—

“We can take the service elevators,” said Sebastian. “The Anointment is being held in the magmalight substation beneath the building, for security. This way.” Tyrus and Phlox fell in step behind him, crossing Ravonovich's office.