Evolution (Demon's Grail Book 2) (7 page)

“Skellig says will be at Karakh before the twelfth sun has set,” I tell him. “I have no reason to doubt him.”

“Skellig is always right,” he replies. “Never question him.”

“I won't, Father, it's just...” I pause for a moment, aware that I shouldn't ask too many questions but overcome by curiosity. “What is he?”

“He is wise.”

“Of course, but what species? I've searched through the Book of Karakh, but there's no mention of anything like him. I know there are others of his race, I've seen them at the camp. Why did you enlist them to help us?”

“Because I could not rely on you alone,” he says firmly. “The spiders have always sought alliances with those who can help them. This is no different.”

“But -”

“I am tired now,” Father whispers as his voice fades further. “I must rest.” He adds something else, but I can't make out the words as he drifts away, back to whatever dark void he inhabits while he waits to be freed at Karakh.

Taking a deep breath, I realize that despite all his threats, Father chose to let me live. There's no way my own father could have failed to understand my feelings for Jonathan, so I can only assume that he still has faith in me, that he still
needs
me. Those errant feelings in my heart must be destroyed, and I must kill not only Abby when I get the chance but also her brother.

I must embrace my full potential as a daughter of Karakh.

Even though my body is still filled with pain, I set one trembling foot in front of the other and start walking, making my way as fast as I can manage toward the Navarian ridge. There, I will be united with the army and I will wait for our final orders to come, and soon we will march upon the vampires and crush them beneath our boots.

Victory is coming. I can feel it in my bones.

Part Three

The Mistake

Abby Hart

While Jonathan and Absalom talk, I busy myself with the task of preparing a proper camp. We've been on the road for almost a month now since leaving Jagadoon, and our supplies have long since been used up. Still, I know how to start a fire, even with little more than a few sticks of swamp-wood, and I can already hear the tell-tale rustling sound of wild rabbits in the long grass at the edge of the clearing.

At least we'll eat tonight.

I've barely spoken during the journey so far, preferring to keep my thoughts to myself, even to walk a short distance ahead so that there's no chance of getting drawn into another pointless conversation. The truth is, now I know how Absalom really views me, I hate the idea of going anywhere near him. When he seemed to have faith in me back at Jagadoon, I allowed myself to trust him and to believe that despite all my uncertainty,
he
might know better. I began to see myself as much through his eyes as through mine, and maybe I allowed myself to think I saw a warrior emerging from my soul. Now I
still
see myself through his eyes, but as nothing more than a failure. For the first time in my life, I feel weak and helpless.

The truth is, I never really thought I might screw this whole thing up. I don't mean that I was full of myself or over-confident, it's just that when I left New York and went to Jagadoon for my training...

I honestly never considered the possibility that I'd fail so miserably.

Still, there's time to turn that around. Not at Jagadoon, obviously, but out here in the real world. I can still make a difference. I'm going to prove Absalom and Oncephalus wrong.

“Need a hand there?”

Startled for a moment, I realize that I was so caught up in my own thoughts, I didn't notice someone approaching. I turn and see Jonathan nearby, but although my initial instinct is to smile, I quickly remind myself that there's no point. My brother must have realized by now that I'm not what I once seemed, that I failed to meet the standards asked of me. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Absalom has told him the truth about my failure at Jagadoon,which would just make me feel even worse. I'd rather not speak to either of them too much, not until I've redeemed myself.

“I'm fine,” I mutter. “I've got this.”

“You can't be the one who sets up camp
every
night,” he replies. “We should all -”

“Why not?” I snap. “It's what I'm good at.”

As if to prove my point, I roll the swamp-wood between my palms and then drop the pieces into a nest of twigs and grass, and sure enough the first faint flicker of a fire starts to spread. Soon there'll be enough heat to keep us warm during the night and to scare away wild animals, and I can get on with hunting rabbits in the nearby forest. After all those years spent thinking about grander things, it feels good in a way to be concentrating now on more mundane, practical considerations. Every evening during this journey, I've busied myself with making a fire, catching food, and cooking. There's really not much else worth doing.

“How long do you think it'll be before we reach this Gothos place?” Jonathan asks after a moment.

“I don't know,” I reply, tossing some more twigs onto the fire. “Why don't you ask the almighty Absalom?”

“He just keeps saying that it's not far now.”

“So there you go,” I mutter with a shrug. “It's not far.”

“I told him I can't be a fighter,” he continues. “I told him there's no way I can learn to be some kind of... vampire warrior.” He sighs. “Those words sound so ridiculous. I still expect to wake up at any moment and find that this has all been a dream.”

“You'll learn,” I mutter.

“To wake up?”

“To fight. You're the son of Patrick. Trust me, you have it in you.”

“No, I really don't.”

“You'll find the anger in your soul,” I tell him.

“It's not there. I'm a librarian, not a soldier.”

“You can still be angry.” I turn to him. “When the battle comes, you'll fight with the rest of us.”

“For what? For something I only ever read about in books?”

“Don't give up. You can do this.”

“I don't want to fight.”

“No-one
wants
to fight,” I tell him, “it's just the way things are. You can't go back to your old life, so your only choice is to stand with us. Believe me, even if you turn around and run, the spiders will eventually track you down and finish you off.”

“Just because of the blood in my veins?”

“Yes!” I say firmly. “They hate us!”

“And we hate them?”

“Of course,” I tell him. “You will too, once you feel the fire burning in your chest.”

“Shouldn't it be burning already?”

“Give it time,” I mutter. “You're a vampire, and all vampires hate spiders. You'll feel that hatred soon.”

I work to get the campfire burning properly, but after a few silent minutes I turn and see that my brother seems lost in thought.

“I felt the same once,” I tell him cautiously. “When I first met Benjamin and the Watchers, and Shelley, and Patrick and our uncle... I felt I was being dragged into a completely different world. It took time for me to feel comfortable with who and what I am.”

“But you weren't happy with your old life,” he points out. “I
was
happy with mine. I had a job I enjoyed, I had friends, I had a family, I'd had a few dates with a woman named Laura and I was hoping to see her again... I want that life back.”

Sighing, I realize that he has a point. After all, it
might
be good to sink into obscurity, and to not carry the weight of our species on our shoulders. At the same time, I have a sense in the pit of my stomach that we're sitting targets, waiting for the spiders to strike, and it's shocking to think that I might not be able to do something to help. Maybe the reason I couldn't prove myself at Jagadoon was that the place was
just
a school, and Oncephalus was
just
a teacher. I need to feel real danger if I'm going to make a proper stand. After all, I did okay against Keller.

“What about the prophecy?” Jonathan asks after a moment.

“What about it?”

“Aren't you scared?”

Turning to him, it takes a moment before I realize what he means. “The prophecy says that when I go to Karakh, I'll die. That doesn't mean I have to rush.”

“Is that how these things work? You have the power to resist?”

“I have the power to -” Pausing, I feel a shiver pass through my body. My cold, wet clothes are clinging to my flesh, but I'm not going to take them off so they can dry. That's not what a real warrior would do. “I have the power to make a fire for us,” I tell him, “and to hunt rabbits. I don't think I need to do anything else tonight.”

“But if -”

“And I certainly don't need to organize my entire destiny,” I add, interrupting him. “Not right now, not here in this damp little clearing.” Reaching down, I grab one of the knives I'm going to use when I catch a rabbit for dinner, and then I turn and start trudging toward the trees. “Sometimes you have to ignore all the grand prophecies and just focus on simple things like where to get your next meal. There'll come a time to fight spiders, but right now I need to hunt rabbits.” Stopping, I stare ahead into the darkness, and for a moment I can't help feeling the weight of history resting on my shoulders. “No,” I continue finally, turning back to Jonathan, “I can't resist. None of us can, not when it comes to destiny and fate. If the Book of Gothos says I'll die at Karakh, then I guess I'll die there. It's already sealed.”

“The Book of Gothos doesn't say anything about me,” he points out.

“Why would it?”

“Patrick and Sophie were my parents too,” he points out. “It's almost as if you have this grand role carved out, and I'm surplus to requirements. Maybe whoever wrote the book understood that I'm never going to be a warrior.”

“Yeah, well...” I pause for a moment. “You'll feel the anger in your soul eventually. I know I did, a long time ago. And when it comes... You won't be able to remember what you were like without it. You'll feel like a new person.”

Jonathan

“She's tense,” Absalom mutters, watching as Abby carries her pitcher toward the river. After a moment, he turns to me. “Has she said anything to you about what's wrong?”

“She doesn't want to talk much,” I reply. “Not since we left Jagadoon. I think maybe she's just thinking about what's to come. While she was training, she could focus on that, but now...” My voice trails off for a moment as I watch Abby in the distance, framed against the night sky as she kneels to collect water. “I think the whole situation is weighing heavily on her mind.”

“As it should,” Absalom replies. “I guess you still don't really understand everything that's happening.”

“Six months ago I was a librarian living a boring life in New York,” I remind him. “Now I'm sitting here far from home, far from the world I know, trying to come to terms with the idea that I'm the son of a vampire.” I pause for a moment. “While Abby was training her body at Jagadoon, I spent six months reading the Book of Gothos over and over, trying to understand it all, but I still feel just as lost. Maybe I should have joined Abby and Oncephalus and worked on becoming a warrior instead.”

“We had to prioritize Abby. We thought...” He pauses, as if he was about to say something he'd have regretted. “You'll have a role to play soon. When we get to Gothos we'll be able to find out what's happening, the council will undoubtedly have learned more about the spiders' intentions and they'll have come up with some plans. Obviously those plans will be flawed and I'll have to fix them, but at least it's a start. To be honest, Jonathan, your existence caught us all by surprise, and so far you seem...”

“More human than vampire?”

“Abby reminds me of Patrick,” he continues. “I never met Sophie, your mother, but I suspect you take more after her.”

“Abby doesn't want to talk about her at all.”

“I'm not surprised by that,” he replies. “Sophie died not long after she gave birth to you both. Neither of you really met her, she was just the human who happened to get caught up in all of this.”

“Is that really
all
she was?” I ask. “I get that Patrick was this great, powerful vampire who'd fought in a load of wars, and I get that people feared him and that he had this prophecy attached to his life. There seems to have been a lot of focus on him, but why was he drawn to Sophie? Out of all the human women he could have fallen for, why
her
?”

“Love, I suppose.”

“Abby keeps telling me she wishes I could have met our father,” I continue, “and I
do
wish I'd met him, but if I had to choose between meeting either him
or
Sophie, I think I'd choose her.”

“You would?” He frowns. “Why?”

“Because I feel I can read about Patrick and know everything about him,” I point out, “whereas Sophie is barely mentioned in any of the official records. It's like she was just a cipher or a ghost in the story, but there must have been more to her than that.” Hearing footsteps nearby, I turn and see Abby's silhouette heading back from the river. “Don't tell her I asked about Sophie,” I continue, keeping my voice low. “Sometimes I think she actually gets annoyed with me. I guess when she heard she had a twin brother, she expected me to be more like Patrick. She's disappointed.”

“She's angry with herself,” Absalom replies. “She's a remarkable person, but she keeps pushing herself. I honestly don't think I've ever met anyone like Abby.”

“But she failed at Jagadoon,” I point out. “You can't deny that.”

“Actually -”

“We're being watched,” Abby says suddenly as she takes a seat next to me. She's holding a dead rabbit in her hands.

I immediately turn to look around, but she nudges my arm and then grabs the back of my head, forcing me to look at her.

“We're being
watched
,” she says again, “and right now the only advantage we have is that whoever it is, they don't know I've spotted them. Let's try to keep it that way. Act normal.” With that, she starts using her bare hands to tear the rabbit's skin away.

“What do you sense so far?” Absalom whispers.

“Just a presence, someone who's trying very hard to stay quiet. One person, that's all. I wouldn't have noticed them at all if I wasn't so jumpy.” She pauses, as if she's listening to the silence all around us. “Whoever it is, they're moving closer. I don't sense any intention to attack us, it's more like...” Another pause. “I'm getting mixed signals. I'm fairly sure it's not a spider or a vampire, but apart from that I'm not sure at all.”

“I don't sense anything,” Absalom replies, before turning to me. “What about you, Jonathan?”

“I...” The truth is, whenever they talk about things like this, I feel completely left out. Either I don't have the same abilities, or I haven't learned to use them yet; either way, I'm definitely not in their league. On current evidence, I'm barely a vampire at all. “I'm just going to have to trust you guys on this,” I say finally.

“The person's backing away,” Abby says suddenly. “Turning. Leaving.” She glances over her shoulder, looking toward the river. “It's female. She knows we're onto her.”

Before I can react, Abby scrambles to her feet and races off into the darkness. I hear a second set of feet too, running through the undergrowth, and then I hear the sound of a struggle as Absalom and I hurry after Abby. Up ahead, my sister is shouting at someone to stay down, while another voice – female, young – is begging to her to stop. As soon as we get closer, I see that Abby has managed to get the intruder to the ground and is now sitting on her, gripping her throat.

“It's a spy!” Abby says firmly. “She must have been listening to us the whole time, ready to take information back to the other spiders!”

“Are you sure about that?” Absalom asks cautiously as we get closer.

“Of course I'm sure!” Abby hisses.

The girl on the ground gasps, barely able to breathe as Abby squeezes her throat tighter.

“I don't think she's a spider,” I say suddenly, stepping toward them.

“Stay out of this,” Abby snaps.

“She's terrified,” I continue, feeling for the first time as if maybe I
can
detect another creature's emotions. “Abby, she's scared you're going to kill her.”

“Of course I'm going to kill her,” Abby sneers. “I'm going to kill every last one of her species.”

“Jonathan's right,” Absalom says suddenly. “Abby, this girl isn't a spider.”

“You don't know what you're talking about,” Abby replies, reaching down and pulling the girl's shirt up to expose her belly. “Look, she's -”

Stopping suddenly, she stares at the girl's smooth flesh. There's no sign of a vertical slit; instead, the girl simply has a normal-looking belly.

“She's...” Abby whispers, before loosening her grip on the girl's throat, allowing her to breathe again. “Who the hell are you? More importantly,
what
are you?”

Gasping for air, the girl clutches her throat. Clearly young, no more than a teenager, she has dark, straggly hair and a series of thick scars on one side of her face. As soon as Abby starts to climb off, the girl pushes her away and then sits up, still trying to get air into her lungs.

“She's human,” I say after a moment, feeling a flash of sympathy for a fellow lost soul out here in this strange world. “Can't you tell?”

“He's right,” Absalom adds.

“This far out?” Abby replies sternly. “I don't buy that for a second. A human would never survive anywhere near the ridge.”

“Are you insane?” the girl splutters breathlessly, glancing around at us before reaching to her belt and pulling out a small knife with a blade no more than four or five inches long.

“What are you going to do with that thing?” Abby asks. “Open our mail?”

“Don't come near me!” the girl shouts, holding the knife out toward her.

“Why were you spying on us?” Abby replies.

“I wasn't spying on you!”

“You were hiding in the bushes.”

“I wasn't
spying
!”

“Then what were you doing?” Abby shouts, stepping toward her.

“I was planning to rob you!” the girl shouts back, with the knife still raised in her trembling hand. “That's all.”

“I believe her,” Absalom says after a moment.

“Thanks,” the girl says, glancing at him. “It's not often -”

Before she can say another word, Abby grabs the girl's wrist and slams her down to the ground, knocking the knife from her hand in the process and pressing the heel of her boot against the back of her neck.

“Stop!” Absalom shouts, stepping toward Abby and pushing her back, before helping the girl up.

“Psychotic bitch!” the girl yells, gasping for air once again.

“Nice,” Abby mutters darkly. “Real fast way to ingratiate yourself, there.”

“Let me look at you,” Absalom continues, turning the girl around to get a better view of her in the moonlight. He pauses for a moment, as if he's trying to understand her. “Tell me, what's a human teenager doing out here in the mire-lands, sneaking up on a group of vampires with the aim of stealing from them?”

“Vampires?” the girl replies, her eyes widening with shock. “What are you talking about, I didn't know you were vampires!”

“Allow me to give you a demonstration,” Abby says, stepping toward her and baring her fangs. I quickly reach out and push her back, worried that she might decide to take more of her anger out on the girl.

“I was just going to try to steal some of your supplies,” the girl stammers, “I swear, that's all! I wasn't even going to attack you, that's not how I do things. That last thing I want is to get into a fight out here. I just wait until people leave things unguarded, and then I snatch them and run.”

“We're not exactly overburdened with supplies,” Absalom points out.

“I saw that much,” she continues. “I was about to give up on you and move on, when that psycho came running after me.”

“Call me a psycho one more time,” Abby says firmly, “and I'll take your head off!”

“No,” Absalom tells her, “you won't!”

“Fine,” Abby mutters, “but I'll loosen it
a lot
!”

“What's your name?” I ask, stepping closer, hoping to defuse the situation a little. I know Abby can get angry, but something about this girl seems to have really pushed her over the edge.

The girl stares at me for a moment, clearly scared and suspicious.

“You might as well tell us your name,” I point out. “I'm Jonathan, this is -”

“Abby,” Abby says, interrupting me. “That's as much as she needs to know.”

“A name's a useful thing,” the girl replies, turning first to Abby and then to me. “When you know someone's name, you can use it against them. If you're smart, at least.”

“Good point,” Absalom replies. “My name is Absalom. Now perhaps you can tell us yours, so that we're all on a level playing field.”

The girl pauses again, as if she's genuinely considering holding back. “Ash,” she says finally.

“Ash?” Abby scowls.

“That's a nice name,” I add. “Short for Natasha?”

Ash stares at me, before nodding cautiously.

“Show us your belly,” Abby says suddenly.

Ash frowns. “Why?”

“Just show us.”

“I already did!”

“I want to see it again!” Abby says firmly. “I want to be sure!”

“Abby,” Absalom says with a sigh, “I think we'd both know by now if she was -”

“Show us!” Stepping forward, Abby towers over the girl. “If you've got nothing to hide,
Ash
, then show us your belly.”

“You're crazy!” Ash replies.

“I'm crazy and I have a sword,” Abby says darkly. “Think about that for a moment.”

Ash pauses, before rolling her eyes and pulling up her shirt to expose her bare belly. “Happy?”

“She's not a spider,” Absalom points out, turning to Abby as Ash lets her shirt drop back down. “You were right to be suspicious, but let's accept that fact now, okay? Spiders aren't the only creatures out here near the ridge.”

“That still doesn't mean we can trust her,” Abby replies. “For all we know, the spiders have been paying spies to act on their behalf. The Book of Gothos is full of stories about them allying with other species whenever it suited them.”

“So tell us, Ash,” Absalom continues, turning to the girl, “how did a human teenager end up in a place like this? You
are
human, aren't you?”

“I'm whatever you want me to be,” she replies. “For a price.”

“Is that how you've learned to survive out here?”

“I'm pretty adaptable.”

“You're from the human world,” he says with a smile. “I can smell it on you.”

“Nice,” she mutters, clearly still worried that she's in danger. “Let's just say that I was born and raised in England, then everything went a little screwy, and now I'm here in the Underworld or the mire-lands or whatever you people want to call this place. I've learned to survive while I wait to find a way home.”