The Eternal Tomb (3 page)

On Bane's coffin.

The wood exploded as the heavy stone head crashed into it. Splinters sprayed across the room. Phlox lifted the sledgehammer and struck again. The coffin lid imploded and a geyser of sleeping soil burst into the air. The sound rattled off the stone walls of the crypt.

“There we go,” said Phlox, another strand of hair coming free. Oliver noted the tight purse of her mouth, the turquoise glow in her eyes, the fierce
v
shape of her brow.…

Crrrraaackk!

“Nice work, honey,” Sebastian said supportively. His eyes had begun to glow with emotion as well, his face similarly tense.

Phlox's next swing crashed through the bottom of the bed and into the dresser drawers below. The sledgehammer came away wrapped in ratty black T-shirts and torn jeans. Phlox shook the clothes free, then swung the hammer again.

Oliver watched his brother's coffin splinter apart, collapsing into a pile of broken wood and clothes and soil, and felt his face grow tight as well.

Finally, this was good-bye.

The sledgehammer head clanged to the stone floor. Phlox turned to Sebastian. “Would you like a turn?” she asked solemnly.

Sebastian looked down at his hands. His left, though almost fully regrown, was still slightly smaller than the right, and a ghostly white. Sebastian was finally able to do most of the normal things that an adult vampire could do, but he shook his head. “You can finish.”

“Oliver?” Phlox asked, holding the sledgehammer toward him.

“You do it,” said Oliver quietly.

“All right, then.” Phlox swung ferociously, crushing the pile of remains and even cracking the floor in the process.

Oliver was relieved to finally see his parents releasing their emotions, and also that he'd gotten Bane's hidden objects out of the coffin just in time.

Phlox stopped again, this time letting the hammer fall from her hand and clatter to the floor. She stared hard at the wreckage, her eyes burning. “Shall we?” she whispered.

“Of course,” said Sebastian. He gathered armfuls of the tangled wood and clothing. “Oliver, would you like to help?”

“Yeah.” Oliver slipped out of bed and filled his arms as well. He followed Sebastian upstairs. Within his load was one of Bane's leather jackets, which still carried a faint scent of Bane's many noxious colognes. The smell made Oliver's gut clench. He never imagined that he could have missed his annoying brother this much. Then again, until the moment before Bane was slain, Oliver had had no idea how similar they were. It was so unfair.

Phlox followed Oliver as they climbed to the surface floor of the house. They slipped through the steel door, around the broken refrigerator, and carried the remains across the dilapidated space, through a huge hole in the far wall, to a giant stone fireplace. Rain fell gently into the room from rotted holes in the floors above.

Sebastian tossed his armful in. Oliver did the same. Phlox followed, then pulled a tiny glass jar from her pocket and hurled it at the pile. The jar exploded and a thick pink substance splattered onto the remains. It was jellied magma, which aided in starting forges and fires and getting them to burn far hotter than a conventional oven or flame ever could.

Sebastian struck a match and tossed it in. There was a great sucking gasp of air, and Bane's things burst into white-hot flames.

Oliver squinted at the blaze, but forced himself not to look away. Phlox and Sebastian stood on either side of him, doing the same. Bane's clothes and boots began to melt. The wood blackened and crumbled in the searing heat.

“Cindrethhh…”
Phlox whispered slowly. It was an ancient Skrit word for a slain vampire, meaning “return to ash.”

As his vision was slowly blinded by green, Oliver saw Bane's face in his mind, that night in the overgrown cemetery, the last moment of his existence. His look of shock as he'd turned to dust—a look that Oliver had never seen from his brother before. That gut-clenching feeling increased, and Oliver longed to—

Admit it
, he said to himself. Yes, he wanted to cry again, as he had that night with help from the apparition. He wanted that painful feeling that strangely seemed to make things better. But he couldn't do it alone. Different as he was, he was still a vampire. And he hadn't seen the apparition at all in the weeks since Bane's slaying.

Oliver felt a hand, and turned to find Phlox taking his. She squeezed it so tightly that Oliver's finger bones came close to snapping. “This won't happen again,” she whispered.

“We won't let it,” Sebastian agreed softly.

The fire cooled and soon died. All that remained was a pile of ash and cinders.

“Time for breakfast,” Phlox said quietly, and turned away. Sebastian followed.

Oliver gazed at the ashes for another moment, then joined them.

In the kitchen, Phlox threw herself into making a fresh blood angel cake, Bane's favorite. Oliver sat at the island, in his usual place. Sebastian stood by the counter. Bane's old seat remained empty.

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.