The Demon Hunter (3 page)

“What a creature, eh?” said Bane. “We're demon twins.”

“Whatever,” Oliver muttered. “Like you could have a jaguar nahualli. They're supposed to be noble—”

Bane socked Oliver in the shoulder. “That's for being dumb!” He glared darkly at Oliver, but then grinned again. He brushed his long bangs, dyed with shocks of green, from his face. “And you should have seen the look on your face! You'd think it would get old, bro, but it never does.”

“Yeah, it sure is funny,” Oliver mumbled, as he got to his feet.

Bane's arm shot out, knocking Oliver down again. “Watch your mouth, dork.”

Something clattered like claws on the top of the tunnels. Oliver looked up to see a wolf peering down at them. Now a black bear appeared. These animals also had glowing black eyes.

“Hey, gents,” Bane said to the animals. Black smoke swirled around them, and Bane's friends Ty and Randall appeared. Their faces were also painted with designs in skeletal colors. They produced glass spheres and incapacitated their animals. “Look what I found,” Bane continued. “What should we do with him?”

Randall's grin faded. “How about I tear his limbs off?” He sounded like he meant it, and Oliver saw Randall flexing his right hand. His arm had been burned off by the Scourge of Selket back in the winter, and had only recently finished regrowing. Emalie was responsible for Randall's injury, although she'd been possessed at the time. Randall blamed Oliver, because the Scourge had been meant for him. The Brotherhood of the Fallen had been trying to slay Oliver so that he wouldn't open the Gate.

“Or,” said Bane, “we could drop him in the hippo pool. That'd be fun to watch.”

“Why don't we go do something that's not completely boring?” grumbled Ty.

“Good point,” Bane agreed. “Anyway, we wouldn't want to damage the favorite son.”

“Better than being the shame of the family,” Oliver shot back before he could stop himself.

Bane's eyes narrowed to slits. “Excuse me?” Oliver saw his brother's fingers tighten into a fist.

Don't say anything else,
Oliver thought, and yet, since he'd confronted his father in Italy, Oliver was finding that it helped to try to say what he was feeling. At the time, he'd thought that his parents were so ashamed of him that they were going to slay him and start over with a new son, but when he finally confronted his dad, he'd found that their feelings were quite different.

“Big deal,” Oliver said. “So you can push your little brother around. You're just jealous because I have a destiny.” Oliver felt strange using his destiny as a weapon against Bane, since Oliver didn't even want it. In fact, Bane would have been much better suited to the prophecy. Ending the world wouldn't bother him one bit, and he'd probably love all the attention of being the chosen vampire. Still, it was all Oliver had to fight back with. “And what do you have?” he continued. “Some fancy new Occupying powers, so what.”

“Oh yeah?” Bane grabbed Oliver by the shirt and hurled him up out of the tunnels. Oliver spun through the air, trying to find the forces, but slammed to the ground, his back spiking with pain. As he tumbled down the side of one of the cement mounds he thought that, while this whole saying-what-you-were-feeling thing might be good in the long run, in the short term it always seemed to lead to pain.

Oliver landed on his stomach, getting a mouthful of wood chips. Bane vaulted out of the tunnel and stalked toward him.

“Hey, Bane, can we go already?” called Ty, his voice flat with boredom.

Bane's eyes glowed fiercely. “Don't talk to me about your destiny, you miserable butt fungus.”

Oliver jumped to his feet. “Leave me alone.”

“I should,” Bane snarled, but he paused. “If you had any idea …”

“About what?” Oliver was surprised to hear himself shouting, but he couldn't help it. “What am I too much of a
lamb
to know about now?
You're
the one who doesn't have a clue. You've been digging around all year trying to find out more about my destiny 'cause you wish you had it!”

“Ha!” Bane spat, eyes burning, but he stayed rooted in place. “Don't act like you know anything, bro. 'Cause you don't, you really,
really
don't.” Bane's voice cracked a little, from anger, Oliver guessed.

“Can I rip his leg off?” Randall called. “Or can we just leave?”

Bane glared at Oliver. Oliver stared back, trying to keep his eyes narrowed, trying not to let his legs buckle. Bane seemed even more angry than usual.

Finally, Bane spun and returned to his friends. “We're outta here,” he barked, dropping down into the tunnel. Ty and Randall stood and dissolved into smoke swirls, then rushed back into their animals. The wolf and bear got to their feet and were joined by the jaguar. The three grunted and growled to one another, then took off as a pack into the trees.

Oliver felt the dizzying rush of his nerves unwinding. That had not been fun. Not that things had ever been particularly fun with Bane, but lately they seemed even worse. Bane wasn't happy about summer school, even though it allowed him to finally catch up on his studies like Occupying, which his friends had learned back in the spring. He always seemed irritable, and kept to himself even more than usual. It had been a long time since he'd come home and shared stories of his exploits with Phlox and Sebastian, as he once had.

Then again, they were still mad at Bane for getting the family kicked off the boat to Isla Necrata, which was a major embarrassment, not to mention that it cut their summer vacation short.

Bane had been caught stealing the summoning charm for Selene, when Half-Light was still trying to acquire it. Oliver didn't know whether Bane had used the charm during the time that he'd had it. Had he summoned Selene, and if so, what had he learned about Oliver's prophecy? And why had he wanted to summon her in the first place? Was it really for the simple reason that he was jealous of Oliver? Or was it more than that?
Maybe he's trying to find a way to get my destiny for his own.

Whatever Bane was up to, Oliver hadn't heard his parents talk about it much at all. Overall, there seemed to be a lot of
not
talking this summer when it came to Bane. Since the trip to Morosia, it was almost as though Oliver and Bane had switched places.

Well, hopefully Bane was out of his hair for the night, and he could get back to meeting up with Emalie and Dean. Oliver hurried across the zoo to the echoing sounds of lonely animals and vampires at play. He kept to the shadows, and kept an eye out for that strange apparition, but he didn't see it again.

Chapter 2

Bats and Bodies

NEAR THE CENTER OF
the zoo was a long, low building. Half of it contained reptiles, and the other half held the nocturnal animals exhibit. Oliver passed the main entrance and stopped at a maintenance door. It had a thick padlock, but that was only for show. The lock had been specially made with a release button on the back, placed there by a thoughtful vampire employee.

The room was comfortably warm, lit only in low red. Oliver was relieved to find that there weren't too many vampires around. He passed a group of three kids sitting on the rocks inside the turtle habitat, snickering softly to one another, silhouetted in the red light. A group of younger girls knelt in a circle on the floor, tossing dice made of bone.

Oliver kept his head down as he passed the vampires, only looking up to gather the curious glances from the reptiles, who were busy and alert with nighttime activity. They had sensitive noses and were aware of the forces, too, so vampires intrigued them in ways that annoying humans never could.

At the end of the reptile hall, Oliver pushed through a set of double doors and wound his way into the nocturnal animals room. Day and night had been switched for these creatures so that humans could see them at their most active. At ten P.M. the lights would be turned on for the rest of the night, but Oliver had a little time in the dark before that. He walked on a twisting catwalk with angled glass walls looking in on the dark habitats. He noticed a slow loris creeping by, and heard the rustling of an anteater on the simulated forest floor below.

He stopped at the last habitat and sat down on the carpeted floor, elbows around his knees. Despite his side trip with the apparition and his brother, Oliver still had a few minutes before Emalie and Dean would arrive.

In front of him was a display of trees with thick ropes strung in between. There was movement, and then the ropes began to twist and bend—a flapping of leather—and now a small creature approached, pulling its way along a rope: a vampire bat.

The creature reached the glass, its upside-down head peering out at Oliver, its busy nose twitching.

“Hey,” said Oliver quietly. The bat continued to survey him as he stood and produced a small plastic bag from his sweatshirt pocket. He placed his other hand against the glass. The bat reached out, touching the tiny elongated fingers at the end of its leathery wing to the glass where Oliver's hand was.

“Maybe you'd be my nahualli,” Oliver said quietly. Unlike a jaguar or tiger, the little vampire bat was never going to be the symbol of an army or a great leader. It preferred the shadows, where it could be less noticed as it went about its existence. Oliver liked that.

He concentrated on the forces and levitated a few feet off the floor, until his head was just below the ceiling and his face was even with a tiny, grated air vent.

The bat clambered up into this corner. With amazing dexterity, it reached out and peeled the grating away from the hole. “Thanks,” said Oliver.

He reached into the bag and removed a gorged Malaysian mosquito. It was enormous by mosquito standards, about an inch across. Holding it carefully by one of its delicate legs, Oliver held it through the hole. “Fed on wild pigs, like you like,” he added quietly.

The vampire bat sniffed at it, then grabbed the blood-filled insect and loped away along the rope. Now, a second bat arrived, swinging along the ropes by its feet. A third followed not far behind.

A feeling of calm spread through Oliver. He liked to watch the bats cradle the fat insects in their fingers, their noses inspecting the prize, and then carefully eat. They were as complicated a creature as any, and Oliver wondered if these three worried about their futures, or pondered their existence. Did they even know they were in a cage? If they did, did it bother them? Or did they think that this cage was their entire world, and if so, what did they think of it? Maybe they thought it was just fine, because it was all they knew. Oliver wondered if that was really so bad.

He fed the second bat and was pulling the last insect from the bag—when every light in the exhibit turned on.

The bats shrieked.

Oliver's vision exploded into static white. He lost track of the forces and tumbled to the floor. What was going on? The lights weren't supposed to come on for another—

The double doors crashed open.

“Jennings and Blake securing the night room, sir!” a voice barked.

Oliver rolled onto his back, blinking madly, but the lights had made the world around him little more than faint gray lines drawn in white.

Booted feet clomped up the ramp. He could smell the humans. They would reach him in moments. The bats shrieked urgently, advising Oliver to flee. He was still confused—yet now there was a new, familiar scent.

Just past the vampire bat exhibit, the exit door slammed open.

Oliver rolled until he hit the side wall of the catwalk, then shut his eyes tight and tried to concentrate. He had to spectralize now!

More footsteps. A human approached, his breathing thin, his heart rate high.

Oliver finally reconnected with the forces and began to sink back from the world. Would it be soon enough? He tried opening his eyes again. They'd adjusted enough that he could make out some colors and shapes in the overwhelming brightness. There was the human, in a brown jacket, a gun raised in one hand, a radio in the other.

“Anything, sir?” a voice crackled from it.

“Nothing yet,” replied Detective Nick Pederson as he moved slowly along the catwalk.

He was practically beside Oliver when there was a loud thud that made the detective jump. One of the bats had lunged against the glass right beside him. It hissed wickedly. Detective Pederson swore to himself.

In that instant of distraction, Oliver got to his knees and, keeping himself spectralized, scrambled to the ceiling, then down the hall until he reached the exit door. He glanced back, saw that the detective was continuing into the exhibit, and slipped around the corner.

He hung down to push open the door when it was yanked open. A head appeared right in front of him.

“Whoa!”

“Tsss!”
Oliver darted back, lost his traction, and fell to the floor. He looked up to see Dean and Emalie peering in. Dean was in his usual long coat, his matted hair sticking this way and that. Emalie's hair was in braids, and she wore a denim jacket.

Dean couldn't resist chuckling at Oliver's sprawled position. “Nice.”

Emalie elbowed Dean. “Oliver,” she whispered. “Come on.”

Oliver scrambled to his feet and ducked out the door, following Emalie and Dean down a narrow walkway to a larger path. Red lights flashed in the trees. “What's going on?” Oliver asked.

“Lots of police,” reported Dean, “but we're not sure why yet. We were just about to come in and meet you when they showed up.”

They crept along the path until they reached a wide intersection and saw a commotion up ahead. There were police cars and an ambulance, their engines off but their red and white lights still flashing. A news truck was backing into position, a large floodlight raised high above it, its beam falling on a female newscaster. She stood by the glass wall surrounding the penguin habitat. Most of the action seemed to be focused there.