The Demon Hunter (21 page)

Oliver found that he was nervous. The feeling grew, and he was three bites into his cake before he figured out why.

It was time.

He'd been waiting, trying to understand how his parents truly felt about losing Bane. Now that he'd seen it—felt it—he could say what he'd been holding inside.

“Guys,” Oliver began, “I know.”

Phlox stopped working at the counter, but didn't turn around yet. “What's that, honey?” Oliver was certain she'd heard him. Sebastian put down his goblet.

“I know about Bane and the prophecy,” he continued. Phlox gazed at him blankly. Oliver felt the urge to shut up and get out of the room, but he pressed on. “I know all of it. Bane was sired, like me. He was the first try at the prophecy, but it didn't work.”

Oliver watched Phlox's face darken. She had lied to him about this, telling him that Bane had been born like a normal vampire child.

“Yes, Ollie,” said Sebastian. “Bane told you, I take it?”

“Yeah.” Oliver didn't feel any better for saying this. “Why didn't
you
tell me?”

Phlox gazed at the floor, shaking her head. It was a look of disappointment that Oliver had only seen in the last few months. “Not telling you about Bane, or about your destiny to begin with … it was all to give you a better chance at a normal childhood.”

“But it hasn't been normal.”

“Well,” said Sebastian quietly, “we thought it could be, at least until it was time for you to fulfill the prophecy. That was our mistake. Still, it's almost over. Once you're Anointed, things will be better, until the day when Illisius comes to you.” Sebastian smiled. “And then we'll be free.”

“But …” Oliver felt a sharp stab of worry. The very things his dad—that all the New World vampires—looked forward to was something Oliver didn't want. “What if what happened to Bane happens to me?”

“Ollie,” said Sebastian, “we won't let anyone slay you.”

“No, not that,” Oliver said, struggling to get these thoughts out. “I mean, failing at the prophecy, getting left out. Bane said he never felt right after his Anointment failed.”

Phlox moved around the island and put an arm across Oliver's shoulders. “Honey, we made our mistakes with Bane.… But it's different with you.”

“Bane never had the annual force treatments from Dr. Vincent,” Sebastian added. “And we're summoning Vyette much sooner for you than we did for him.”

Oliver nodded, but inside, his fears weren't subsiding. This wasn't the way he'd hoped the conversation would go.
What did I expect?
he wondered. But that was easy. Having finally glimpsed his parents' emotions about Bane …
I hoped they might be so upset that they'd hear me out when I said
…

“But maybe we'd be better off if I didn't have the prophecy at all.”

Phlox and Sebastian exchanged a look. “What do you mean?” Phlox asked.

“Well, I mean, that would make all this go away, wouldn't it?” reasoned Oliver. “We don't know if the prophecy is going to work, but if I didn't have it at all, then we could be normal.” Neither parent replied. Oliver didn't know what else to do except keep talking. “It's like what Grandma said,” he continued, echoing what Bane had said to him. Phlox sighed at the mention of her mother, but Oliver went on. “Maybe Earth isn't so bad.”

“Oliver,” said Sebastian, “first of all, your grandmother and the rest of the Old World have never embraced modern studies enough to fully grasp that Earth is a prison. The blood and chaos are seductive, but those are just the trappings of Finity.”

“What's Finity?” Oliver asked.

“Finity is time with an end,” Sebastian explained. “It is a limitation of worlds made of matter. Nowhere in the universe is Finity stronger than on Earth. Life, death, and all the desperation and emotion they create, it's all due to Finity. You can see it played out in the human comedy, with their love and wars, their shortsightedness, their lack of awareness. It's all because of their short lives. Demons weren't meant for such a fate.”

Oliver thought about this. “That's why you call Earth the Eternal Tomb.”

“Hah.” Sebastian smiled. “It's been called that, yes. When a
vampyr
demon is sent here, there is no escape. The end will come, compliments of Finity, whether by a stake or sunlight or the effects of time.… Which is, of course, why we yearn to be free, why we will be.”

Oliver hesitated, but then, as he'd been practicing over this long year, said what was on his mind. “Bane said that Finity was a good thing.”

Sebastian and Phlox shared another look, and Oliver felt a surge of that old frustration. They still knew things that he didn't. “Why are you looking at each other like that?”

Sebastian looked quizzically at Oliver. “Do
you
feel that way?”

“I don't know what to feel,” said Oliver honestly. “I just wish we could be normal. Bane thought that if we undid the prophecy, then—”

“Listen,” Sebastian said sternly, “things
can
be normal. Once we're free. But undoing the prophecy is unthinkable.”

“Come on, Dad. Why? Bane thought that—”

“Bane is gone,” said Phlox.

Oliver felt the weight of those words settle over the three of them. He looked at his parents' weary faces, and couldn't think of anything else to say. They had lost a son, and were doing what they thought was best to protect Oliver. He got that. And they believed in the prophecy, and freedom for the
vampyr.
He got that, too.

But what about what I feel?
Oliver thought desperately. He had to keep trying to make them understand. “What about my friends?” he asked.
What about my human parents?
he thought inside. “Opening the Gate will destroy them—”

“We've been very understanding of your friendships,” Phlox said carefully, “but you have to understand that such things, they—they're just not possible. I know it's hard but you're just going to have to—”

“Get over it?” Oliver muttered, echoing his mom's words from the winter.

Phlox's eyes smoldered. “Oliver, we're trying to do what's best for you.”

“But maybe what's best for me is undoing the prophecy—”

“Then what?”
Sebastian suddenly roared, and hurled his goblet across the room. It clanged from the wall to the counter to the floor. “Even if it were true, Oliver … even if undoing the prophecy
were
best for all of us, it wouldn't matter.” His voice lowered, but his eyes were still smoldering. “Do you have any idea what Half-Light will do if we defy them? We wouldn't even have you if it weren't for Half-Light, and we will not lose you because of some misplaced feelings or friendships. We won't discuss this further.”

“You have to see it from our perspective,” added Phlox, her tone still gentle. “There's no alternative to fulfilling your prophecy. If there's anything to be learned from what happened to Bane … that's it.”

Oliver wanted to argue further, but once again, he understood what Phlox and Sebastian were saying. Half-Light would likely slay the whole family before allowing the prophecy to be undone. So really, did his parents even have a choice about any of this? Maybe they didn't.

“Fine,” Oliver said quietly. He slid away from the counter and headed for the stairs.

“Oliver, we mean it,” Sebastian said behind him.

“I know.”

Oliver dressed for school, grabbed Bane's secret items, and left through the sewer. His parents might not have a choice, but he did. And if there was one thing that
he
had learned from his brother, it was to do his own thing.

Chapter 3

The Firefly and the Message

OLIVER WAS ONE OF
the first to arrive at school that night. He leaped onto one of the basketball hoops and sat on the rim. A couple younger kids were cornering a cat in the far corner of the playground, hungry for a snack. The sky was heavy with low clouds, tinted orange by the city lights. A cool breeze blew, and it smelled sweet like rain.

Oliver removed Bane's objects from his sweatshirt pocket: a black felt bag and a small scroll tied with yarn. He put the scroll back in his pocket, loosened the bag's silk drawstring, and gently emptied the contents into his palm.

You won't believe what I did, bro
, Bane had said just before he was slain. In Oliver's hand was a tiny box wrapped in a strip of paper. He unwrapped the paper. On it was a short message, in handwriting he didn't recognize:

For Oliver
.

The box was carved from pure amethyst, its top and bottom connected with a gold hinge. Oliver slowly opened it. Inside was a small pillow of black felt. On it lay a single firefly. It didn't move. It looked dead, but it might also be in some frozen state, waiting to be awakened.

“Hello?” Oliver murmured at the insect. “I'm here.” The firefly didn't stir.

Bane had said that he'd spoken to Selene. That she'd told him how to undo Oliver's prophecy and that whatever he'd been doing was almost ready.
Bane, what were you up to?
This firefly must have been part of Selene. Maybe it contained a bit of her life force.

“Hey,” he said to the firefly.

“Who are you talking to, Nocturne?”

Oliver snapped the box closed and looked down to see his classmate Theo standing at the base of the basketball hoop. “Nobody,” said Oliver coldly, slipping the box back into his pocket.

“That sounds about right,” Theo remarked. He looked around the empty playground, his hands in his pockets.

Oliver braced for what Theo would say next. They had never been friends, but since the night of Bane's slaying, when Oliver had ruined a game of Gargoyle Tag by attacking Theo's friend Maggots in a fit of rage, Theo had been colder than ever. Oliver felt like a timer was ticking. Every night, he expected some kind of revenge for that outburst. And the longer he had to wait, the more worried he became that the payback was going to be brutal.

But Theo just stood there. After a few seconds, Oliver finally snapped: “What?”

Theo glared up at him, but then looked away again. “Heard about your brother,” he said.

“Yeah, so?”

“So …” Theo began, and lunged up into the air. Oliver flinched, but Theo grabbed the backboard and swung himself onto it, sitting above Oliver's shoulder. Strangely, he used only one hand. The other stayed in his pocket. “That sucks, that's what. Even for you.”

Oliver scowled. “Yeah, well, why do you care?”

“I don't, really.” Theo stared out across the playground. “But if you're wondering why you got off after what you did to Maggots, that's why.”

“So what, I'm, like, lucky?”

“Nah, you're just not broken in ten places, like you shoulda been, after what you did.”

“Okay,” said Oliver. Theo kept sitting there. Oliver was confused. “And?”

“My sister was torched,” said Theo. Torched was another term for being slain. “She was wild, so she had it coming, but still …” Theo's eyes glowed with a tinge of deep blue.

“Huh,” Oliver offered.

“My dad took it pretty hard,” Theo said quietly. “He wanted revenge, but they never found out who did it.”

“That's too bad,” Oliver said sincerely, yet with a note of distrust.

Theo pulled his other hand from his pocket and made a show of flexing it. A few of his fingers were purple and broken. Theo had shown up at school with injuries before. No one ever talked about them, but it was known that sometimes Theo's dad could get very angry, even for a vampire. “You gotta get some vengeance,” Theo said, and his voice lowered. “Otherwise, you do other things.”

Oliver waited for Theo to continue, but he didn't. “Okay,” Oliver finally said. “Thanks.”

“Hey, Theo!” Maggots, Suzyn, and Kym were strolling across the playground. “What are you doing?”

“Oh,” said Theo. “Back to business. Hey, guys!” he shouted, then turned and shoved Oliver violently off the hoop. As Oliver tumbled to the pavement, Theo soared over to his friends and they shared a good laugh. Theo sauntered away, an arm around Kym, but with his damaged hand still hidden in his pocket.

Oliver dragged himself to his feet. More kids were arriving now, filling up the playground. He felt the objects in his pocket, frustrated that he would have to wait to decipher them further.

Oliver headed inside early, brushing absently through the students who were milling around by the door, joking and playing. Theo's words had him distracted. Vengeance. He thought of Lythia, and imagined lunging at her, plunging a stake through her heart and watching her dissolve to ash … and he found that he very much wanted that. It made his teeth grit, his fists clench.
There you go, bro
, he could imagine his brother saying approvingly.

He knocked at the back door, but there was no answer. Trying the handle, he found the door open. The halls were alive with glowing grotesqua. Oliver proceeded upstairs, past the silent, leering demon faces and swirling battle scenes.

Rodrigo, a vampire who secretly worked as the school's night janitor, stood by Oliver's classroom door. His hands were coated in shimmering neon. He waved them around, sculpting a new grotesqua image, mumbling to himself in Skrit as he did so. Colors dripped from his fingers, composing images.

The scene showed a hall full of vampires dancing, dressed in fine tuxedos and gowns. To one side, an orchestra played, their bows waving in unison. The dancers twirled. Balconies arced above, and at the height of the scene, a glowing moon shone down. The Darkling Ball.

The room reminded Oliver of the one he'd visited in Bane's memory. After its destruction, Half-Light's main offices and the ballroom had been moved into the top floors of the Iniquity Bank Tower, a tall black skyscraper downtown. Oliver had never been to the ball, but of course he would be there this year. So would the rest of his class—this was the first year that they were old enough to attend.