The Fountain of Truth
by Hadley Weaver
Copyright © 2016 by Hadley Weaver
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
DEDICATION
This is for you, Bridget. You've been my best friend, my editor, my first fan and my endless source of motivation. Thank you for inspiring me, for believing in me and for helping me to carry this through. Without you, this book would have never seen the light of day.
Table of Contents
1. I Have a Bad Feeling About This
2. Sometimes I Hate Being Right
3. Curses
4. Down the Rabbit Hole
5. Iris in Wonderland
6. Of Course Something Had to Go Wrong
7. Are You Even Human?
8. When Everyone Wants a Piece of You
9. I Need an Answer
10. Not Exactly the Answer I Was Hoping For
11. Beware
12. Trouble Ahead
13. Plans
14. Why We Do What We Do
15. Lies
16. Nothing Is More Persuasive Than a Good Old-Fashioned Threat
17. When You Bring a Blade to a Fire Fight
18. The Little Human That Could
19. Something to Fight For
20. Of Death, Revenge and False Appearances
21. The Enemy of My Enemy
22. Painful Reprieve
23. A Deal with the Devil
24. A Million Things That Could Go Wrong
25. The Underground Society
26. The Hellhounds
27. Confessions
28. Funeral
29. Mission
30. The Beginning of the End
31. The Amulet
32. Death or Dare
33. The Fountain of Truth
34. Aftermath
35. When You Realize You're Just a Pawn in a Universal Game of Chess
36. This Is Not the End
1
I Have a Bad Feeling About This
The glass factory, once an important source of income for the town of Forest Hills, was now just a massive metal skeleton, rusted and contorted under the weight of time. Piles of shards covered in dirt and moss were all that was left of its windows, initially designed from stained glass, like the ones in medieval European cathedrals.
A few dozen feet into the woods, hidden behind the trees, Dorian closed his eyes and tried to block out the monotonous rapping of the rain so he could hear any possible noise coming from inside the abandoned building. It seemed quiet enough. Still, just to make sure, he turned around and looked at Raven, a shadow hiding a few feet away from him. The latter nodded in agreement and darted towards him.
Dorian wiped the rain off his face with the back of his hand. "Of all the bloody supernaturals in this world why did it have to be vampires?"
"Only because they're the most vicious creatures on the planet." Raven narrowed his eyes. "It looks like they're all asleep."
"Are you certain they're all inside?"
"I think I can count to fourteen."
Dorian looked at the heavy sky. It was raining with a vengeance and their clothes were soaking wet, which he knew would slow them down if a fight turned out to be inevitable. "This bloody rain."
"You were raised in England."
"I was raised in a cage." He inspected the building again, running his eyes from left to right to make sure there was no one in sight. "Alright. In and out?"
"In and out."
"Have you got the silent dust?"
Raven took out a small pouch from the inside pocket of his jacket and shook it in front of Dorian's face.
"Are you certain it's going to work?" Dorian asked. "I still think we should have brought wooden sticks or something. Just in case."
"They would have been useless. The classic wooden stake to the heart method won't work here. We're not dealing with your garden variety vampires. These particular bloodsuckers are wearing armor. A wooden stake would break like a twig in your hand and the only result you'd get would be a couple dozen splinters."
"Decapitation it is, then."
"It'll work." Raven looked at the pouch and then put it back in his pocket. After a second he whispered, more to himself, "Oh, what I wouldn't give for a few drops of sleeping water..."
"If only your father weren't exiled and his family forbidden from stepping foot in the Kingdom of a Hundred Rivers again." Dorian gave Raven an intense look. He had a strange feeling that things wouldn't go as easily as his friend made it seem. "Are you certain it'll work?"
"What are you stuck on that phrase? Don't worry. As long as we don't make any loud noises—"
"That's comforting."
"Relax. It'll work. But we have to move now. The powder is even more effective if they're in the deep sleep stage."
"Now you're a sleep expert?"
"We're about to steal a rare magic stone that's very well hidden inside a vampire lair. With us being two against fourteen, it's good to know when they're at their most vulnerable. And that's when they're fast asleep. Which won't be for much longer. So, are we gonna do this or would you like me to take out a recommendation letter to further prove to you I'm good for the job?"
"As if someone would risk their lives recommending you for anything." Dorian was nervous and when he was nervous he was cranky. He was picking on Raven but the truth was that he was stalling, waiting for his gut to tell him it was safe to go in. If he had a choice, he would turn around. Sadly, he didn't. His life mission depended on the success of that particular endeavor and he couldn't give up now. "Okay," he said, taking in a deep breath and touching the handle of his ancient sword resting in its sheath along his back, the only thing he had left of his father. "Let's do this."
They nodded at each other and darted towards the factory. In the blink of an eye they were in position—Dorian to the left, Raven under a massive window to the right of the main entrance. They stopped for a second and looked at each other, listening in. Raven took out the pouch and spread its contents on the ground. A white, glittery powder covered the chipped pavement in front of the entrance. They stepped on it repeatedly, and then checked the soles of their boots to make sure they were entirely covered in it. As soon as Raven gave the green light with a nod, they went in.
The inside of the factory was gloomier and more derelict than its outside. Steel bars were hanging from the ceiling and the ground was covered in piles of mortar and blocks of cement that were once the foundation of the second floor. There was broken glass everywhere and Dorian prayed that the powder would work, otherwise that place would become their funeral ground. Even though all the windows were broken and cold currents were rushing in from every side, whistling as they passed through the small spaces between the massive cement blocks, the smell of wet ground, mixed with that of concrete dust and dirty rainwater, made the air inside hard to breathe. The deathly scent of the building's inhabitants only made it worse.
Dorian focused on the ground, making sure every step he took made as little noise as possible. He trusted Raven and his knowledge of alchemy, but the stakes were too high and he couldn't afford to fail. Every few steps, he stopped and looked around. In each corner of the space that was once the ground floor of the glass factory there was a group of bodies lying down next to one another. T
hey were fast asleep on the empty concrete floor, hindered neither by the imminent danger of the loose beams hanging from the ceiling nor by the bone-piercing moisture that filled every inch of their living space. He counted fourteen of them, wondering how a group of creatures in possession of such a priceless object would choose to live in such conditions when they could very well have a castle at their disposal.
He looked at his friend, expecting to see his porcelain face contorted with disgust, but instead all he saw was a mix of caution and fascination as he scouted the bodies on the floor. As a child, Raven would have curled his nose at the sole thought that such a place even existed. Now, after spending nearly ten years locked in a prison in the Sahara desert, nothing seemed to surprise him anymore. Raven didn't talk about that time and Dorian didn't ask any questions. Still, he knew that Raven, like any seventeen-year-old who'd spent a decade isolated from the world, had more demons inside than he could count, and Dorian often wondered how the boy managed to hide them so well and maintain his constant happy-go-lucky attitude.
Raven, now on a pile of cement beams carefully gathered in the middle of the room like firewood ready to be lit, was signing Dorian. "It's down there," he whispered, pointing at a narrow space under his feet. "I can see it."
"Great," Dorian said, more to himself, eyeing the bodies around them. "Now all we have to do is get this mountain of concrete out of the way without making a sound."
"Not the whole mountain. Just one beam. I can slip inside, grab the stone and then we can get the hell out of this place."
Dorian inspected the beams, carefully circling the pile.
Raven frowned. "What are you looking for?"
"You said we only needed to move one beam. I'm looking for the one that we could take out without having the whole thing crumble to the ground."
"Of course!" Raven's face lit up, his voice full of excitement. "Like in Jenga."
"Like in what?"
"Jenga. A game humans like to play. You build this tower of wooden blocks and then you take turns removing one at a time, without tipping them over. It actually requires a lot of physical and mental skill."
Dorian rolled his eyes. "Fascinating."
"I know, right? We think of humans as pets, because they're frail, they die a lot sooner than us, they lack special abilities and they have no control whatsoever over their emotions, but my father was right. They are fascinating creatures."
"Your father was exiled because of that way of thinking. Now, as much as I would love to continue this entertaining conversation about how intriguing humans are, can we please focus on our more urgent matter? Now, how about you use those physical and mental skills to remove that one beam so we can leave this bloody place?"
Raven circled the pile, just like Dorian had a few moments earlier. He bent forward and backward inspecting the high edges of the beams and the way they fell on top of each other. Then, he finally made his choice. "That one," he said, triumphant.
Dorian looked at the beam in question and indeed it seemed the likeliest to be moved without affecting the entire pile. He nodded and looked around the room one more time to make sure their hosts were still all fast asleep. Then the two of them got on each side of the beam and, with a synchronizing look, lifted its lower end and shifted it to the side, just enough for Raven's slim body to slide inside. The top edge of the beam made a screeching sound as it grazed against the other concrete blocks it was now barely resting on and Dorian stopped breathing for a few seconds waiting for disaster to ensue. There were at least two possible ways that things could go wrong. One, the vampires could wake up at the sound and descend upon them, and two, the beams could come tumbling down and if, that didn't kill them, the vampires could wake up at the sound and descend upon them. Either way they were dead.
When nothing happened, he released a long sigh of relief and took a step back to make room for his friend to pass. But, just as Raven was getting ready to slip inside, a shadow appeared from under the pile, blocking the entrance. Both boys took a step back.
"Help me," she whispered. She was wearing a long dress, once white, now grey and green from the dirt and the wet moss. Her bare feet were covered in dirt and blood underneath the torn hems of her dress. A semi-transparent white layer spread over her eyes, clouding the ocean blue irises behind it. She was full of bruises and cuts and her fingernails were torn and bloody. She couldn't have been older than fifteen.
"A human," Raven said, unable to hide his surprise. He took a step forward, ready to help her.
"She's not a human," Dorian replied coldly, grabbing Raven by the arm to stop him.
"She's not a vampire either."
"Help me," the girl said again, this time a bit louder. She was shaking and it looked like she had trouble standing. She stared at them with imploring eyes as she reached out her hand to find something to lean on.
"She's in between," Dorian said, horror in his eyes as he anticipated what was about to happen. In a split second he broke her neck, but it was too late. She'd already touched the beam they'd left barely leaning against the rest of the pile and, before any of them could do something about it, four hundred pounds of concrete crashed to the floor, making the frail walls of the abandoned factory vibrate under the hit of the deafening sound.
Raven didn't wait for the aftermath. He flew over the body of the dead girl at Dorian's feet and disappeared under the beams. Dorian took out his sword, jumped on top of a concrete block dislodged from the beam when it hit the ground, and prepared for the attack. In the blink of an eye he was surrounded by fourteen vampires, hissing and ready to tear him to pieces. He noticed fragments of shiny metal sprouting from under their clothes and clinking like wind chimes at the smallest move. None of them looked much older than him and Raven, he wouldn't have given them more than twenty-five, but Dorian knew that their real ages were long past the three digits.
"What are you doing here, boy? Are you lost? Shouldn't you be on your way to school right now?" one of the vampires said, and the others laughed as if he'd made the best joke they'd ever heard. Clearly, he was the head of the clan, Max. Dorian had asked around and found out that the man was best known for his privacy and his ruthlessness. He had the same number of followers for decades and they kept mostly to themselves. The girl under the beams must have been really special to them, since Max rarely brought in anyone new to the clan and no one who had crossed him had lived to tell the tale.
Dorian clenched his jaw and forced a smile, all the while staring into the man's eyes. "Funny."
"I don't know you, but your presence here tells me you must be really, really stupid."
"I could say the same thing about you," Dorian replied, pointing at the space around them. "I've seen humans live in better conditions and you're higher on the food chain."
His answer caused a group roar amongst the vampires. It acted like a starter pistol signaling them to attack, but their leader raised his hand and stopped them before they launched themselves at Dorian.
"Max," one of them called, expressing the entire group's disappointment as he kept them from shredding their intruder to pieces.
"I don't normally ask someone their names before I kill them but I'll make an exception for you," Max said, clearly impressed by Dorian's boldness. "It's not every day that someone stands up to me in my own home. So tell me, stranger, what do they call you?"
"I'm glad you asked." Dorian jumped from one boulder to the next to have more stability on his feet once they attacked. The others jerked but kept their positions. "You see, I always tell someone my name before I kill them, especially if there are witnesses. I have a reputation to maintain, you know." He paused for effect and took the opportunity to listen inside the concrete mountain behind him. What was taking Raven so long to get that bloody stone?
"So?" Max was losing his patience.
"I'm Dorian." There was a group hissing, and everyone jerked again, all in unison, like the audience of a well-told campfire story.
"Reed?" as
ked Max, unable to hide his surprise.
"The one and only," Dorian replied with a big smile and an all too obvious note of satisfaction in his voice.
"Well, well, well. Who would have thought? Dorian Reed in my own house. This is an exciting day. Glad to finally meet you, Dorian. Although, I must admit, they said you were young, but this is ridiculous. What are you? Seventeen? Eighteen?"
"Does it matter?"
"Ah, so young and yet so deviant. Did you know there was a rumor that Kane wanted to recruit you? Apparently, of all the juvenile delinquents in the Dark Fae community with rap sheets longer than the Great Chinese Wall, you're the only one twisted enough to match his own sick personality."
"Well, technically, I'm not juvenile anymore."
Max laughed. "Anyways, your reputation precedes you."
Dorian bit the inside of his cheek. "See? I told you."
"Sadly, so will your stupidity from now on. Too bad you won't be around to fix that."
Max looked at the vampires around them and laughed. They nodded in agreement. Dorian inspected the entrance to the concrete pile from the corner of his eye. He couldn't stall for much longer and without Raven he stood no chance against the enemy. When he spotted a shadow moving behind one of the standing beams he gave a sigh of relief.
"I guess we'll see about that," he said, as soon as Raven was by his side, holding a long, thin silver sword in each hand.
Max and his crew flinched at the sight of their second guest, whom no one had sensed up until that point—thank God for that blue blood of his—but whose sudden presence worked like a catalyst, neutralizing every drop of restraint they'd had so far and propelling them all towards the two intruders even before their leader could give them the signal to attack. In the blink of an eye Dorian and Raven were back to back, trying to cut their way out of that mess.
Unfortunately, the vampires seemed immune to their blades, even if they pierced their armors—one of the advantages of being already dead, Dorian thought. Even the deepest cuts did nothing but temporarily slow them down and Dorian knew that the only way to kill them for good was to decapitate them. That, however, was easier said than done. There was a reason they still had the moonstone even after so many decades—they knew how to protect it. They were strong, they were fast and, above all, they were trained in close combat. They didn't need weapons—their sharp teeth and pointed nails, used with impressive skill and technique, did as much damage as any blade. Soon, Dorian and Raven were bleeding from countless cuts all over their bodies and they'd only managed to kill three or four of their enemies. After a while, when they found each other back to back again, Raven handed Dorian a black leather cloth. When he grabbed it, Dorian realized that inside was the reason they were in so much trouble.
The Fountain of Truth (Tales of the Dark Fae Book 1) Page 1
