Jack Templar and the Monster Hunter Academy: The Templar Chronicles: Book 2

by Gunhus, Jeff

  “To become a vampire,” I said.

  “Yes, but not only for himself. He knew he could never again survive the heartbreak of losing another child.”

  “He turned them all turn into vampires,” I whispered.

  “And gained immortality for the simple price of their souls. His wife and five daughters never had a choice in the matter.”

  “And what of the old vampire, the one who turned them into vampires in the first place?”

  “His name remains unknown and there is no further reference to him in the written or oral histories of the time. We assumed he was killed, perhaps by Ren Lucre himself during his rise to power. Perhaps by the first members of the Black Guard: your ancestors.”

  I felt a stir of excitement at the words. It seemed too distant and incredible to be true, but Aquinas said the words with such certainty that I suddenly felt that they must be. “Tell me about them. The first Black Guard.”

  Aquinas looked at a clock on the wall and glanced outside at the lightening sky. “It will be morning soon and you have a full day of training ahead of you. Why don’t you come back tonight and we will continue?”

  I started to object but Aquinas was already on her feet and walking away from me. I got the sense that this wasn’t a subject up for discussion. “Thanks,” I called after her. “Thank you for taking the time.”

  She turned to the side so that her face was in profile. She gave me a little nod, then kept walking. I turned to leave.

  “Oh Jack,” she called out. “You can use the stairs next time. It’s a bit easier that way.”

  I smiled. “Will do. Goodnight.”

  I left through the front door and walked down the wide staircase that zigzagged back down to the ground level. The Academy was stirring. I saw steam and smoke coming from the kitchens where the Ratlings were preparing the day’s breakfast. I stretched and considered going back to my bunk to catch the last few minutes of sleep but decided against it. My head was too full of images from the story Aquinas had told me. I was desperate to know the next part of the tale but knew I needed to get through the day first.

  I walked up to the battlement wall and walked up the rough cut steps to the sentry positions on the top. From here, I had a great view of the forest, where wisps of fog drifted lazily among the pines. Somewhere far down the valley, a lone wolf howled. I wondered if it was Tiberon. So many mysteries surrounded this place that I wondered if I would ever get to the bottom of them.

  The breakfast bell rang behind me and I turned to see the young hunters come out of the dorms to start another day of training. I looked back out to the forest and wondered if we were really any kind of match for the enemy we were training to fight. I hoped we would never have to find out. But in my heart, I knew this was a false hope. The war was coming, just as Aquinas had said. That much was certain. The war was definitely coming. Somehow, I could feel it in my blood.

  “Hey, why didn’t you wake me up?” Will complained to me the second he saw me in the breakfast line.

  I thanked the young Ratling who scooped a heaping mound of eggs on my plate and drew Will away from the other hunters who stood there. “Not so loud,” I murmured.

  “Did you go without me?” Will demanded. “You did, didn’t you? Why would you do that?”

  “Because you were right yesterday when you said this was the perfect place for you,” I said. “The last thing I wanted to do was have you get caught and get you kicked out.”

  The image of being sent packing out through the Academy front gate was enough to settle Will down. We found our table and hunched close together over our breakfast. “So, did you find out anything?”

  “More than you could imagine.” I told him everything from the night before, going over every detail. I wanted to share it with him but I also wanted to say it all out loud so I didn’t forget anything. The entire night had the fuzzy feeling of a dream and I didn’t want it to start to fade away in the morning sun.

  When I finished, Will was awestruck. “So, you’re going back tonight?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “I mean, she’s obviously using this as a way to keep me in line, but this is the reason I came here.”

  “The reason we came here,” Will corrected me. “Let’s get one thing straight— I’m here to help you find your dad. Yeah, I like it here, but if it comes down to it, I’m with you.”

  “Uh oh,” said a voice behind us. “This sounds serious.”

  We both spun around and saw Eva standing there.

  “How do you do that? You’re so sneaky,” said Will.

  “If you had paid attention in my class yesterday, you would have learned how,” Eva said.

  “Are you allowed to be over here? I thought instructors don’t mingle with us little guys,” I said, coming across colder than I intended.

  Eva nodded at our empty table. “Speaking of mingling, I can see you’re doing a great job making new friends.”

  “I’m not here to make friends,” I said.

  Eva stared me down, not liking my tone. “Then I guess you don’t need my help, because you’re doing great.”

  “Eva!” Daniel called from the instructor’s table.

  I looked away. “Speaking of friends, you have great taste in them, by the way.”

  “Yeah, well, I thought I did,” Eva said, looking more angry than hurt.

  Will looked back and forth between us like he was watching his parents fight. “Whoa, c’mon guys. What’s going on here? Will the two of you stop acting like a couple of babies? What is this?”

  “No, it’s OK,” said Eva. “Jack’s right. Instructors aren’t supposed to socialize with newbie hunters who don’t know a thing about real monster hunting. By the way, great job yesterday, Will. The other instructors said you really stood out.”

  “Really?” Will asked, beaming.

  “Yeah, you’re obviously here to learn and get better. I wish I could say the same about the both of you.” Eva walked away.

  When Will turned back to me, he tried to stifle his smile that had been pasted to his face since receiving Eva’s compliment. “Why were you so mean to her?” he asked. “She was trying to be cool by coming over here.”

  I felt a little pang of guilt but it quickly went away when I glanced over and saw Daniel drape his arm around her as she sat down at the instructor’s table.

  “Oh, I get it,” Will said. “Holy crap. You’re jealous.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Jealous of what?” I asked.

  But Will just grinned. He had just solved a major puzzle. He stood up with his now empty plate. “If you want to play it cool, that’s fine with me,” he said. “But I’ve known you since before we could ride bikes. You can’t pull one over on me.”

  “I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. Unconsciously, I glanced over at Eva and Daniel. I really did hate seeing them together. Will stuck his hand in front of my face, cutting off my line of sight.

  “Then you won’t mind if I do this,” Will said. “Or maybe go over and tell Eva you’re sorry for being a jerk and that…ouch!”

  Will rubbed his shoulder where I had just punched him.

  “All right, enough,” I said. “Come on, let’s get a move on. The class bell is going to ring any second.”

  Just as I said that, the bell rang and the hunters all around us sprang to the their feet. They ran toward the practice field, leaving their mess behind for the Ratlings to clean up. Will and I took our plates to the counter, scraped off the leftovers and placed them in the dirty dishes bin.

  A young, rather big-bellied Ratling looked at us wide-eyed, uncertain what to make of two hunters going out of their way to help. T-Rex walked up.

  “Thanks guys,” he said. “Hunters sure are a messy bunch, aren’t they, Simon?”

  The big-bellied Ratling named Simon looked horrified that T-Rex would say something bad about the hunters. He grabbed the plates and scurried away.

  “A little skittish
, isn’t he?” Will asked.

  “He’s alright,” T-Rex said. “They’re all scared of the hunters. I keep trying to tell them they shouldn’t be. I mean, we’re just as important as you guys. Without us, this place would grind to a halt. Let’s see what happens if we stop cooking for a couple of days.”

  “You tell them, T-Rex,” I said.

  “Come on,” said Will. “We’ve got to get into formation.”

  We said good-bye to T-Rex, jogged to the field and got in line.

  That night, I was halfway up the front steps of the Templar Tree when Aquinas appeared on the balcony and walked down toward me.

  “Come,” she said as she passed by me, “I think you should see something.”

  We circled back around the tree and then walked along the base of the outer wall. I wouldn’t say Aquinas was sneaking around, but she was certainly choosing pathways that minimized the number of eyes that might notice our little midnight stroll. We reached the point where the wall met up with the granite mountain and turned to follow the second, more ancient wall of the Citadel that ran the length of the massive cave that loomed over us.

  I squinted up into the night and saw dark, black shapes flying in and out of the caves. Bats. Thousands of them. A chill passed through my body. When I looked down, Aquinas was staring at me.

  “Sorry, the last bat I met tried to kill me…a whole bunch of times,” I said.

  Aquinas moved on and I had to jog to catch up to her.

  Soon, we reached the arched gate at the center of the Citadel wall. I had only seen it from a distance since I’d been at the Academy and had thought it was a just a small opening. But now, standing in front of it, I saw it was much larger than I had thought. It was tall enough to admit men on horseback, even if they were riding four or five side-by-side.

  A massive iron gate hung suspended above it with nasty-looking teeth along the bottom that would sink into holes in the ground below. The heavy gate was poised, ready to drop down when needed to close off the mountain stronghold from the outside world. I cringed at the idea of walking under it, like passing under the blade of a guillotine or in front of a loaded gun. All I could think about was how incredibly fast and effective it could squash anyone or anything unfortunate enough to be under it when it came crashing down.

  Aquinas noticed me pause before walking under it.

  “The gate weighs nearly two tons. It’s never been breached in a battle,” Aquinas said.

  “I’m not so worried about it being breached,” I replied. “I’m more worried about it dropping down and cutting me in half.”

  “That’s good. A hunter ought always be aware of the dangers around him,” Aquinas said. “Not to worry, though. The gate’s suspended by thick chains. It takes two people to operate the mechanism to lower it. Come along,” Aquinas said.

  We passed through the thick walls of the Citadel and entered the cave. I noticed the chains holding up the gate and the complex pulley system for opening and lowering it. The chains were covered with dust and cobwebs as if they hadn’t been moved in years. I turned and looked around the cave as my eyes adjusted to the dark.

  Looming directly in front of us was a battlement with dozens of narrow slits in the rock face where archers could fire directly at an enemy that had breached the main gate. Now they were cold, dark eyes that seemed to follow us as we walked deeper into the cave.

  “Almost there,” Aquinas called out.

  Before us, a heavy metal door rose up out of the darkness. It was studded with sharp points and a heavy chain crisscrossed in front of it with eight or nine padlocks attached in various places. Whatever was behind the door, the hunters didn’t want anyone to get in. Or, I considered, they didn’t want something getting out.

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  Aquinas glanced at the door quickly, as if not wanting her eyes to linger there too long. “That’s nothing for you to concern yourself with.”

  “I keep hearing other students talk about this. Is something locked up inside?”

  Aquinas turned and I felt her eyes bore into me. “It is a relic of the past and has no place in our world today. It is forbidden. Some things are best left in darkness, my boy. Just you remember that.”

  Then it occurred to me what I was looking at. “That’s the entry to the Cave of Trials, isn’t it? Why is everyone so scared of it?”

  “Because they have every reason to be,” Aquinas said. “No hunter has ever returned alive. In the old days, many good hunters, driven by the promise of great glory, made the attempt. But they all failed. That foolishness ended over a hundred years ago with the last attempt.”

  “What’s behind the door?”

  “Death,” she whispered. “Now, before we go on, before we enter the room where so many of your questions can be answered, I have a proposal for you. A bargain, if you will.”

  “I don’t like the sound of this,” I said.

  “We both possess things the other wants. You want answers. I want you to stay at the Academy and complete your training before the final battle is upon us. I’m willing to bargain one for the other. If you stay, I will give you what answers I can.”

  “How long are we talking about?” I asked.

  “Until you become a first level monster hunter.”

  “But Eva says that can take six months, if not longer,” I complained.

  “And in return, I will explain to you the history of the Black Guard and your ancestors, the Knights Templar.”

  “Will you tell me where my father is being kept?”

  “I will answer all your questions to the best of my ability,” Aquinas said.

  “And my mother. What do you know about her?” I asked.

  “Ah, your mother. Eva told me that she came to you in a dream,” Aquinas said.

  “It wasn’t a dream,” I replied. I thought back to when I had seen the vision of my mother. It was after I’d drowned in the river and before T-Rex found me and performed CPR. “I think I was dead,” I stated.

  “Hmm…” Aquinas said. “Most unusual.”

  “Yeah, for me anyway,” I said. “She asked me to forgive her but she wouldn’t say what I was supposed to forgive her for. Do you know what she meant by that?”

  Aquinas stared at me, her face completely unreadable. She could have known everything about my mother or nothing at all. It was impossible to tell.

  After a few moments of silence she said, “In time I will answer all your questions to the best of my ability. But only in exchange for your solemn oath that you will continue your training here until you become a full hunter.” Aquinas leaned in toward me, her eyes narrow and intense. “Think on it carefully, boy. Do not enter an oath with me lightly. It is unbreakable and cannot be reversed.”

  Aquinas held out her hand. I hesitated. Six months. Maybe longer. I hadn’t planned on being here for more than a couple of weeks. Just long enough to find out where my father was being held, or at least a clue to send me in the right direction. Still, the prospect of having all my questions answered was exciting. Maybe it was worth the time. Besides, Eva was probably right. I could stand to learn something from the classes and the fighting drills. Slowly, I reached out and shook her hand.

  As I did, a spark passed between us like a massive discharge of static electricity. I flinched, but Aquinas didn’t move. She grasped my hand and looked into my eyes. “The oath is made,” she said.

  I nodded my head.

  “Good, now that wasn’t so bad, was it? Now come along.” She spun away from me and walked toward a solid, rock wall of the cave, and, without breaking stride, disappeared straight into the mountain. Or at least she seemed to. I walked to the spot where she had disappeared and saw a layer of thick brown vines covering a fold in the rock. I would have missed it completely except for a glow of light that barely penetrated through to the far side. With one last look at the forbidden door, I pushed my way through the vines.

  I found myself in a narrow passageway, rough cut and hewn o
ut of the solid rock of the mountain. A burning torch disappeared down the shaft ahead of me.

  “Come along,” echoed Aquinas’s voice. “We don’t have all night.”

  I hustled to keep up. When I reached her, she was unlocking a heavy wooden door studded with metal. Cobwebs and dust covered the door. Wherever she was taking me, it didn’t look like anyone had been there for a while.

  Still, the door swung open soundlessly on smooth hinges. I followed Aquinas into another passageway, this one even narrower and with a low ceiling that made us both stoop over. Above us, I noticed the ceiling of the passageway glittered in the flame of the burning torch. I reached up and touched the surface and my hand came back covered in gold dust.

  “Is this—”

  “Pyrite,” Aquinas said. “Fool’s Gold. It has its uses. But certainly, a band of solid gold would have been preferable. OK, we’re here.”

  The flame fluttered as we entered what felt like a much larger space. I say ‘felt’ because the small torch was no match for the intense darkness that surrounded us.

  “What is this place?” I asked, my voice echoing through the dark chamber.

  Aquinas held the torch up close to the nearest wall. Carved directly into the solid rock face was a beautiful image of an ancient walled city, surrounded by a siege army of medieval soldiers.

  “This is our history,” Aquinas intoned. “Different from what they taught you in school, I’m sure.”

  “The city is Jerusalem and this is the Crusades, isn’t it?” I asked. “Eva had told me—”

  “Eva told you what?” Aquinas snapped.