That night, we were members of the Black Guard.
We were monster hunters.
I
lifted the medallion over my head and the chorus of Creach voices filled my ears. I moved through them, searching for the black, twisting column of fire. I saw it far in the distance moving away from me.
“Ren Lucre!” I shouted as loud as I could.
Despite how loud everything was around me, my voice boomed in the air. The millions of voices fell silent.
“Ren Lucre!” I shouted again. “We’re not done here.”
The black tornado, which had been so far out on the horizon, bore down on me with incredible speed. Within a few seconds, the giant spinning vortex swirled in front of me, lightning flashing inside its black folds.
“You live,” Ren Lucre’s voice hissed at me. “How is that possible?”
“Are my friends still alive?” I demanded.
“Where are you?” Ren Lucre asked.
“ Tell me what happened to my friends I’ll tell you where I am.”
In answer, I suddenly heard the murmuring voices of Eva, Will and Cindy. I couldn’t see them, but I could hear snippets of what they were saying.
“Where are they taking us?” said Cindy.
“I don’t know,” Will replied. “Eva, is Jack really dead?”
“I don’t know,” Eva said. “I thought he might survive the fall, but I just don’t know.”
The tornado’s fury increased and the voices disappeared.
“Now tell me where you are,” Ren Lucre said. “Unless you are still too much of a coward.”
“Tonight I’m going to remind you what my family is capable of,” I said. “Prepare to die.”
The Creach voices erupted in a tidal wave of sound. Over the ruckus, I told Ren Lucre where to meet me an hour later.
I put the medallion back on and the Creach voices stopped. T-Rex stared at me, and from his expression, I could tell that he had heard my side of the conversation.
“Uh…I don’t get how telling Ren Lucre where and what time to meet us is a good idea. Doesn’t that just give up the element of surprise?” T-Rex said.
“Look, we can’t go to the police, right? Eva told us that half of them are Creach. Parents will just go to the police, so that’s no good,” I explained. “So it’s time to call in the cavalry.”
“The cavalry?” T-Rex said. “You mean like horses?”
“I mean like horses,” I said with a smile. “Come on, we have less than an hour to get ready.”
We marched off toward town.
An hour later, nearly four o’clock in the morning, we were on school grounds, crawling on our bellies up the hill behind the football stadium. As we crested the hill, we saw exactly what I had hoped for.
The stadium lights were on, bathing the field in bright, white light. It was set back far enough from town that no one was likely to notice. The field and bleachers were full of Creach monsters. Trolls, goblins, two-headed dogs, minotaurs, wraiths, werewolves, vampires, you name it. At the center of it all, stood Ren Lucre, surrounded by his minotaur personal guard. He held a heavy rope in his hand and at the end of it, tied together, was Eva, Will and Cindy.
“There they are,” T-Rex whispered. “They’re alive.”
As I looked down at the hundreds of Creach monsters and the towering figure of Ren Lucre, the pit in my stomach returned. The fear rose up in me. Suddenly, I found it hard to breathe.
But I took a closer look at my friends down there. I heard my mother’s voice echo in my mind:
You have the blood of a thousand heroes coursing through your veins. But the courage to do this will not come because of your birthright or because of something I tell you. It will only come from a decision deep inside of you.”
I felt the power in her words. The desire to save my friends was stronger than my fear, but it wasn’t going to make my fear go away.
But it was my choice how I would let that fear affect the kind of person I was. Whether I would let it control my actions and stop me from doing what I knew was the right thing to do. I put my hand on my chest where my mother had placed hers. Still more scared than I’d ever been in my life, I made a decision.
“Let’s do this,” I said.
“What if this doesn’t work,” T-Rex asked.
“What if we don’t try?” I said. “If we do nothing, our friends die. We can’t stand by and let that happen.” T-Rex swallowed hard and nodded. I patted him on the back. “You never know, we might just pull this off.”
“That’s reassuring,” T-Rex said.
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go.”
I can only imagine how what happened next must have looked from the point of view of the Creach horde.
At the hour mark, Ren Lucre raised his hands for the Creach to be silent.
“The time is at hand, and yet, the young Templar is not here,” Ren Lucre told his flock. “Just like his kind. A coward and a liar.”
Just over the hill, where T-Rex and I had just spied on the group, came the roar of a car engine.
The Creach looked over in the direction of the sound. The engine revved again.
“What kind of treachery is this?” Ren Lucre said.
Just as the words came out of his mouth, T-Rex and I flew over the hill in Hester’s red convertible Ford Mustang. And when I say flying, I don’t just mean that we were going fast. I mean we were literally in the air.
For my first time driving, I didn’t think I was doing a bad job. Driving from Hester’s house to the school had given me a feel for the car. But now, with my heart pounding, I had the gas pedal pegged to the floor. We caught major air coming off that hill.
We hit hard, bounced around and fishtailed on the grass a little before I got it back under control.
“Yeah!” T-Rex shouted.
“Get ready!” I shouted back.
We crashed through the chain link fence surrounding the field. The Mustang’s wheels churned up the grass and I aimed into the center of the Creach horde. It was pandemonium.
Monsters ran in every direction, trying to get out of our way. The ones that were too slow bounced off the front of the car. The slowest ones went under and I felt the tires bump over them.
Not all of them were running, though.
Some were more disciplined and took swipes at the car as we passed, snarling and barking at us.
The worst were the minotaurs. Two of Ren Lucre’s guard chased after us as we cut back and forth across the field. One grabbed hold of the back bumper and held on tight as we dragged him across the field. Then I spotted him in the rear view mirror as he crawled over the back trunk and into the back seat.
“T-Rex,” I cried. “Behind us!”
“Got him!” he shouted.
T-Rex stood up in the passenger seat with his troll spear. He stabbed at the minotaur, but the beast blocked his blow. The minotaur raised his sword over his head to chop me down.
“Hold on!” I shouted at T-Rex.
I spun the wheel and the minotaur lost his balance. Because I had warned him, T-Rex recovered faster and lunged forward with his spear. He caught the minotaur in the throat and the creature tumbled out the back.
I spotted Eva, Will and Cindy, still tied up together, but now separated from Ren Lucre.
I steered toward them and slid the car to a stop right next to them.
“Jack!” Cindy yelled.
“About time,” Will said, smiling.
I jumped out of the car, sword in hand, and sliced the ropes off them. Cindy hugged me, but when I looked at Eva, she was angry.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded. “You should have escaped when you had the chance.”
“And miss all the fun?” I said. “No way.”
T-Rex was busy throwing each of them a weapon, courtesy of the armory we had found in the Mustang’s trunk. Even Cindy held a short sword. The Creach were getting over the shock of the car and now were closing back in.
“Get in the car!” I yelled. “Let’s get out of here.”
Eva went to get into the front passenger seat, but Cindy blocked her way and climbed in first. Eva scowled at her but jumped into the back seat with Will and T-Rex.
I looked up to see that the Creach had parted into two groups, leaving an open path down the field. At the end of the path was Ren Lucre, with a sword at his side.
I revved the engine.
“Do it,” Eva said. “You can end this.”
“Come on, Jack,” Will shouted. “Get him!”
I revved the engine even louder.
Then I felt Cindy push up against me from the passenger seat. Her mouth was next to my ear. And so was her sword.
“Turn off the engine, Jack,” Cindy whispered.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I turned to look at her. As I did, her eyes glowed red.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “You’ve been one of them the whole time?”
Eva held her own sword at the back of Cindy’s neck. “Drop your sword or I’ll run you through, Creach.”
The skin on Cindy’s face pulled back tight and her teeth transformed into fangs. Her eyes turned bright red and she hissed at Eva with a long, serpentine tongue.
“Sorry, Jack, but your girlfriend’s kind of ugly,” Will said.
I winced in pain as Cindy’s sword punctured the skin on my neck.
“I said, let him go,” Eva hissed.
“Doesn’t work that way, monster hunter,” Cindy rasped. “He would be dead before I felt the smallest amount of pain. You know it’s true or you would already have struck.” She reached over with her spare hand and turned off the car’s engine. “Now get out of the car, all of you.”
By this time, the car was surrounded by Creach, all pointing a weapon at the car or snarling with claws or fangs exposed. We had no choice but to do as she said.
“This explains why your house wasn’t messed up when they kidnapped you,” I said.
“And why you didn’t run when you were left unguarded at the river,” Eva said.
“And why such a good-looking girl would like Jack,” Will added.
I glared at Will.
“What?” Will said. “I’m just saying…”
“I should have seen it,” Eva said. “She’s a siren. She draws men in only to feast on their flesh.”
“Only I’m sorry to say that I will not have the chance to feast on you, Jack,” Cindy said. “Not that I wouldn’t have wanted to,” she said suggestively. “But you have other plans, I’m afraid.”
Ren Lucre walked forward. He nodded at Cindy then turned his eyes to me.
“I admit I underestimated you. I didn’t even think you’d show up, let alone put up so much of a fight,” Ren Lucre said. “But now this foolishness is over. Take the boy, kill the others.”
“Wait!” I cried. “Take me, but leave them alone. Let them go. Please.”
Ren Lucre turned and smiled. “All right, Templar, I will give you a choice. They can die here or they can come with you to my castle to be tortured alongside you while your father watches.”
I felt the air rush out of me. I couldn’t have heard him right.
“What did you say?” I whispered.
“Oh yes,” Ren Lucre said, “despite what you’ve been told, your father is alive.”
I looked to Eva but she wouldn’t look me in the eye. She already knew and hadn’t told me.
“Tsk…tsk…” Ren Lucre mocked. “It’s always a shame when even friends deceive you.”
I looked back at Ren Lucre. “He’s…he’s alive? Where?” I stammered.
“Well, barely alive. My dungeon is not the most comfortable place in the world. Especially after twelve years of torture.”
I felt like I was having an out-of-body experience. My father was still alive. He was alive.
“But why?” I asked. “Why do you hate my family so much?”
Ren Lucre spat on the ground. “Because it is your bloodline who are the monsters, not mine. I swore that one day he would suffer the same as I have suffered. The same way it was done to me during the Great Sadness.”
“You mean the Atrocity, you Creach monster,” Eva said. “How many innocents were killed by the Creach during that time?”
“I was there, monster hunter,” Ren Lucre hissed. “Can you say the same?”
“Stop!” I yelled. “This is getting us nowhere.” Eva fell silent. I turned to Ren Lucre. “You offered me terms. My friends can either die here or come with me to be tortured. I say neither.”
The Creach that were gathered around us laughed and snorted. Even Ren Lucre had a smile on his lips.
“Neither?” Ren Lucre said. “I’m sorry, my young hunter, but there was not a third option.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “I challenge you to a duel.”
The Creach horde howled at this. Even though my eyes were locked onto Ren Lucre, I could see Eva shaking her head.
T-Rex leaned over to Eva. “What’s he doing?”
“I don’t know. A challenge like this is only between two members of Creach blood. If the Creach who is challenged does not accept, they die the most painful of deaths. This is very old magic.”
“But Jack doesn’t have Creach blood,” Will said. “Does he?”
Eva didn’t reply. She watched the Creach carefully, especially Ren Lucre.
The Creach horde slowly fell silent as they took stock of Ren Lucre’s reaction to my challenge. What they had thought to be a ridiculous request now seemed suddenly plausible as Ren Lucre stared me down.
“I said I challenge you, Ren Lucre,” I bellowed. “Do you accept?”
Ren Lucre’s eyes burned with hatred.
“I do,” he hissed. “Prepare to die.
E
va pulled the straps on the troll armor that T-Rex had given to me. It was made of stiff leather but was flexible enough at the joints for me to move freely. She placed chain mail my head that hung down to my shoulders. I gripped my sword in my right hand and a shield hung on my left forearm. Eva looked grim as she tightened my armor.
“Be ready to give ground when you need to. Watch his center; it will tell you which direction he’s going,” Eva said. “Let him attack if he presses, but don’t let him get you on your heels.”
I tried to concentrate on the advice but I couldn’t stop thinking about the revelation that my father was alive. Somewhere in the world, in some dark dungeon, he was alive. I wondered whether…
Eva slapped me hard across the face. “Do you want to die? Is that it?”
I noticed for the first time that she was worried. Really worried. “ Sorry,” I said, shaking my head to focus. “Don’t get him on his heels, got it.”