The Demon Hunter (17 page)

Bane glared at Tyrus. “Help,” he muttered. “Sure.”

“Your parents agree with me.”

“No they don't!” Oliver shouted. “Bane, don't listen to him.”

“Yes, Bane, they do,” said Tyrus. “Oliver, I know this all seems strange to you, but it's for the best.”

“You lied to my parents,” Oliver shot back.

“I didn't have a choice,” said Tyrus defensively. “We all answer to Half-Light. Your parents know that. They knew the game.”

“This isn't a game!” Oliver shouted. “I'm not a game! Bane's not a game!”

“Forget it, bro,” said Bane. “They can take me.”

“No, they can't.”

“Oliver, I'm afraid I have t—” Suddenly Tyrus buckled sideways and crumpled to the floor.

Behind him, Lythia lowered a heavy length of board.

Oliver gaped at her incredulously.

Lythia only smiled. “I told you I was here to save you, Oliver. I've been waiting for the right moment to slip from Half-Light's sight. They are sooo overbearing. Anyway, except for a few bumps in the road, this has turned out just like I hoped.”

“Like we'd ever believe you,” said Emalie.

Lythia rolled her eyes. “Oh, blood bag …” she said and turned back to Oliver. “Come with me and I'll save you, just like I said.”

Oliver shook his head. “There's no way.”

Lythia's eyes narrowed. “How about if I force you to? Minions.”

Lythia and the two zombies stepped toward them. Oliver readied himself for another fight, when he heard a low, vibrating growl. Lythia paused and glanced down at the hole in the floor.

“Sasha,” Dean said softly. Oliver glanced over to see him holding the jaguar totem. “Attack.”

Lythia had just enough time to look up and start to smile. “I'm impressed.”

The jaguar lunged up from the darkness, sinking its claws and teeth into Lythia's legs and dragging her down into the basement.

There was a snarling commotion from below.

“Minions! A little help!” Lythia shouted.

The two zombies immediately jumped down the hole. Dean twitched like he was about to follow, but gritted his teeth and managed to stay where he was, looking relieved.

“Can we watch?” Emalie asked, peering after them.

“No, we need to get Bane out of—” Oliver looked around. Bane was gone. “Where'd he go?”

There was a crack of splintering wood from the back of the barracks. Oliver, Emalie, and Dean rushed down the hall to find a door by the kitchen tossed aside. Stepping out onto the back porch, they spotted Bane sprinting away across the dark field, toward the bluff.

They raced after him across the wet grass. Ahead, Oliver saw Bane disappear over the bluff edge. They reached it in moments and halted. A long, steep hill of clay and bushes dropped to a narrow strip of gray beach. Tiny waves lapped at its pebbled shores. Bane was nowhere to be seen.

“Maybe he needs some alone time?” suggested Dean.

“Bane,” Oliver muttered. “We can't let Half-Light find him first.”

“Can't find his scent,” said Dean. The wind was whipping in off the water, where banks of fog rolled along the water.

Oliver turned to Emalie. “Can you sense him?”

“I don't think so,” said Emalie. Oliver noticed that she was shivering badly.

“Are you okay?”

She looked at him seriously. “I'm not sure. I feel a little weird.”

“I know where he's going.” Jenette's smoky form suddenly appeared between them. “Sorry I didn't get here sooner,” she said, a slight pout to her voice. “I wish you guys would call me for your big adventures.”

“Hi,” said Oliver. He wondered how Jenette even knew where to find them, or what they'd been up to. “How do you know where Bane is?”

“Follow me,” Jenette said simply, and slithered down the bluff.

Oliver turned to Emalie and Dean and shrugged, then jumped off the bluff edge, sailing down to the beach. Emalie appeared beside him. Dean tumbled down, covered in sand.

“This way,” said Jenette, floating up the beach.

As they walked, the fog began to roll in, breaths of cool droplets obscuring their view.

“How do you know where Bane's going?” Oliver asked again.

“Well … I've been there with him before,” Jenette replied. “Don't you remember?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, that's right, I keep forgetting,” said Jenette.

“Keep forgetting what?”

“Well … there's this thing. I want to tell you, but I can't. Not yet.”

Oliver threw up his hands. “Great. Join the club.”

“You could charge, like, dues,” Dean piped up sarcastically. “People should have to pay for the right to keep you in the dark all the time. You'd be rich.”

Emalie snickered just loud enough for Jenette to hear. Oliver noticed she was still shivering from her demon encounter.

“Come on, you guys,” Jenette groaned. “It's not like that, I swear.”

“Everybody could get charged interest, you know, like on how long they lie to you,” Dean went on. “We could have my dad run the club. He was an accountant.”

“Yeah,” Oliver said, feeling a hint of relaxation creep through his sore body. Then his foot crunched on something, and he stopped in his tracks.

“This is the place,” Jenette whispered from beside him.

Oliver found himself standing in a pile of splintered wood, fabric, and bones.

Ahead, Oliver spied another similar pile. Smashed coffins, lying on the beach. Waves lapped against the boards. Crabs scuttled among the bones and tattered clothing. A little ways further, there was a larger collapsed structure of cement and columns: a mausoleum.

“Whoa,” said Dean.

Oliver followed his gaze upward. High on the steep bluff, wrapped in fog, Oliver saw objects protruding from the land at odd angles. Coffins, the earth having eroded away around them. Some looked ready to fall.

“Up here,” said Jenette. She began rising up the slope.

Oliver reached out for the forces and levitated. Dean scrambled up the clay, grabbing on to tangles of brush. Emalie blinked away and reappeared beside Oliver as he reached the top.

They stood at the edge of an overgrown field. A few large, old trees spread a wide canopy of branches over a messy tangle of shrubs and blackberry vines. The moldy, moss-covered tombstones were barely visible.

“This cemetery's probably not on our map,” commented Dean.

“That's the point,” said Jenette. “This way.” She floated forward, along a narrow dirt path through the growth.

They weaved through the dark graveyard. The wind died away. An owl called. The high-pitched whispers of bats echoed. The silence seemed intentional, like the dead were watching them walk by, and listening. They couldn't help stepping lightly.

Now Oliver heard a sound ahead. A voice, speaking softly …

They reached the edge of a clearing. The treetops were still thick overhead, but here, the vines and bushes gave way to a circle of grass.

In the center was a depression in the earth, in front of a tombstone. A figure was kneeling in the dirt, hunched over, muttering.

“Bane?” Oliver whispered. He started forward.

“What's he doing?” Dean started after him, but Emalie held him back.

“Let him go,” Oliver heard Emalie say.

Oliver crossed the clearing alone, approaching Bane, and now he could make out some of his brother's words. “Now what do I have? What do I have?” He slammed his fist down against the soil.

Oliver stopped at the edge of the depression. It looked as if it had been dug by hand. He was about to say something when he saw the bones sticking out of the dirt. There were two sets of ribs. A small mess of papers had collected around and inside them. Above that were two skulls, staring up into the night with empty eyes. Oliver looked at the tombstone:

Victor Weissel, loving father

1895–1921

Irene Weissel, beloved mother

1899–1921

And below that:

Elijah Weissel, child of god

1920–1921

“Bane …” Oliver said weakly, and just then, in a cold rush, he understood a truth that had been right in front of him, all along.

He stepped down into the depression, kneeling beside his brother. He put a hand lightly on Bane's shoulder, something he'd never done before, and braced for Bane to knock it free, but he didn't.

“They did it to you first,” Oliver said carefully. “You
were
the prophecy child before me.”

Bane nodded.

“These were your human parents.”

“I never even knew them,” said Bane heavily.

“You …” Oliver struggled to turn his shock into words. “ … were sired just like me. And …”

“And I failed, bro,” Bane finished. “The night of the Darkling Ball, I was supposed to be anointed with power, to travel to Nexia and meet Illisius.… But somebody blew up the room … I was hurt too badly.… And that was it. Half-Light decided I was too weak to receive Illisius, that they were better off starting over.” Bane's shoulders heaved. “I wasn't strong enough.”

“But I'd already been sired,” said Oliver.

Bane chuckled. “Yeah, you were the backup plan. Once I failed, they put another demon in me—just some average
vampyr
—and then I was no longer demonless, and so the prophecy passed to you.”

Oliver couldn't believe it. All this time, all these years, he had thought that he and Bane couldn't have been more different, and yet they were merely on opposite sides of the same cruel fate.

Oliver remembered thinking that Bane would have been better suited to the prophecy than he was: And it was true. Bane
had
been, and now he'd been left bitterly behind as the prophecy moved on without him. Left behind to feel like he'd failed, like he hadn't been strong enough. And he had to watch as what had once been his was given to his younger brother.

Bane coughed wickedly. Oliver reached into his pocket and produced the small black bottle he'd gotten from Désirée.

“Here. This is supposed to help you recover from the jaguar.”

Bane took the bottle, popped off the cork, and slugged it back. “Half-Light trapped me in there with that Nagual,” he said.

“Yeah, they were framing you.”

“Perfect.” Bane dropped the bottle and wiped at his mouth. “That tasted terrible.”

Oliver watched the bottle fall among the debris lying within the rib cages of Bane's parents, but he now saw that it wasn't trash at all. It was a collection of papers and clippings. Oliver noticed one faded yellow headline that read:

Explosion Rocks Historic Downtown Building

And then he spied another newspaper clipping that he'd seen before:

CHRISTMAS TRAGEDY:

Mother and Father Slain, Child Missing

Oliver could barely speak. He picked up the clipping. Oliver had thought it was Emalie who had placed a copy of this beneath his desk at school last winter … But then Emalie had told him that someone had stolen it from her. He looked at Bane. “
You
gave me this.”

Bane nodded weakly. “What did I say, bro, that night way back at the school? I said,
Big brother is here to help
.…” He coughed again.

“I thought,” said Oliver, “I thought you were jealous. I thought you were trying to steal the prophecy, or make it your own, or something.”

Bane laughed again. “That's hilarious.” He turned to Oliver, and his gaze hardened. “I don't want the prophecy back.”

“But then … why? Why have you been sneaking around learning about the prophecy? Why did you steal Selene's summoning charm? Why is Half-Light trying to frame you?” He held up the article. “Why did you give me this?”

“Because,” said Bane, “I'm trying to free you from it.”

“What?” Oliver couldn't believe it.

Bane almost grinned. “I know, right?”

“You—” Oliver felt something like anger. “But you're such a jerk to me.”

“Well, that part's just for fun—”

“But that's what I want!” Oliver shouted. “I
want
to be free of the prophecy!”

Bane looked at him gravely. “I know you do.”

Oliver threw up his hands. “Why would
you
want that?”

“Yeah, well,” said Bane. “I guess because … you're my younger brother. I watch you. I see how hard it is for you, and I … I don't want you to end up like this … like me.”

“But what's wrong with
you
? You're a normal vampire. I'm the one who's a screw-up.”

“
Tsss
.” Bane's face soured. “I've never been right inside, bro. I always feel different, separated.… Like there's a glass wall between me and everybody else. You'd think it would have changed when I got my demon, and it did, kind of. With a demon, I don't feel as lonely anymore, but I'm still bitter, left out. Everyone else I know is out there being normal and I'm right there with them, acting the same way, but inside … it just doesn't work.”

“But you always make fun of me for acting weird.”

“Yeah, I thought it might help you straighten out. Guess not, huh?” Bane's face tightened. “The worst part is, I don't know when it's ever gonna end for me. Am I gonna be screwed up like this forever?” He turned to Oliver. “Are you?”

Oliver shivered at the thought.

“I don't want that for you, bro.”

“But what about, like, freedom for the vampires and all that?”

“Bah,” Bane grunted. “You heard what Grandma and the family said down in the Old World. What's so bad about this place? Blood and chaos whenever you want it. The fact that we might take a stake is what makes it fun, right? That's the whole point of Finity.”