The only response Mike got was a silent nod from Aaron. Which, in truth, was all the support he needed. Mike punched a button on the GPS, and it gave him directions to the closest motel.
Chapter Thirty Eight
The money in the glove compartment was enough for two rooms, split between girls and guys: Mike, Aaron, and Julius Brutus in one, and Steph, Annabella, and the Kiva in the other. Mike had asked Amadeus and Nukes where their hideaway was, but all Nukes had said was that they found a good place to sleep and left it at that. Maybe the Gargoyles still didn’t trust him. Or maybe they hadn’t found a good spot at all, and were simply trying to make Mike feel better. Either way, Mike took what he could get.
Temporarily released of their responsibility to guard the gargoyles, the Guardians could finally sleep as long as they wanted.
Mike was the last one to wake up. When he did, he saw Aaron and Julius Brutus sitting on the other side of the bed, munching on Egg McMuffins and watching some random soap opera. Mike glanced at the clock – it was two in the afternoon.
Aaron tossed Mike a wrapped sandwich. “Morning, sunshine.” He pointed to Mike’s Amp, which was resting next to the clock. “That thing’s been going off the entire afternoon.”
“Why didn’t you pick it up?” Mike rushed to put the necklace around him.
“Tried,” Julius Brutus said through a mouthful of food. “There was no answer each time. As if it knew it wasn’t you.”
Strange, Mike thought as he headed over to the bathroom. He didn’t know the Amp could do that.
Mike splashed water on his face and looked at himself in the mirror. He had a cut on his left ear, and his hair was all over the place. Other than that, he looked – and felt – physically refreshed.
And utterly miserable.
His clan was gone. His mom was gone. The gargoyles were gone. He had no one to turn to for help, and no one to rely on but a few kids he’d met only weeks ago. He felt like Maximus from the movie Gladiator, his favorite of all-time. Alone, with only a few allies and a desire for revenge. With a mix of “I’m just happy to be alive” sprinkled in.
The Amp’s gemstone was cold against his bare chest, underneath his t-shirt. Mike held it between his fingers and stared. Such a tiny thing. Yet he knew nothing about the extent of its power. He wondered if it could turn back the clock and erase everything that had happened. Then none of this would be real.
“Are the girls up?” Mike asked as he exited the bathroom, drying his hands on a towel. He looked at his sneakers, chucked in a corner, then down at his old white t-shirt and shorts. He’d probably have to buy some new clothes somewhere – he didn’t know how long it’d be until they could go back to Windham.
“Annabella is for sure,” Aaron said between bites. “Probably didn’t sleep.”
Mike’s thoughts instantly turned to Zachariah. The guy had given himself up to save her… them, Mike corrected himself. All of them. They were all alive because of Zachariah.
Maybe he wasn’t dead. He was a good fighter, and there wasn’t much room in the corridor. If Zachariah kept his flames up, the vampires would have had no way of reaching him—
There was a knock on the door.
Mike snapped out of his thoughts and went over to the blinds, which were shut. He peeked through to see three girls standing outside.
“If you guys are still asleep...” Mike heard a warning note in Steph’s voice. He wrenched the door open.
“We’re up, we’re up.” Mike waited for the three girls to enter, checked outside to see if anyone was watching them, then locked the door.
Steph plopped onto the armchair. Annabella sat on the armrest, while Kiva stood next to her, rubbing her arms. Annabella’s eyes were still red; she must have been crying for most of the night.
“Annabella, listen,” Mike started, but she cut him off with a shake of the head.
“Zachariah is alive, I’m sure of it,” she insisted. “When can we go back?”
Aaron said, “Uh, how about never? Did you see how many vampires there were?”
“Vampires aren’t around during the day,” Annabella shot back.
For a moment, the only sound was that of an overly dramatic revenge scene playing on the TV. Mike shot a look at Julius Brutus, who was still watching. JB grabbed the remote and shut it off, putting it down like a four-year-old who hadn’t done anything wrong.
“I don’t think we can go back,” Mike said quietly. When he saw Annabella’s expression, he elaborated. “At least not yet. If the Brethren are looking for us – and they probably are – the first place they’ll stake out is Windham. It’s too dangerous.”
Kiva said, “But what about Zachariah? Or Caroline?”
“Or Alexis,” Aaron added.
“And don’t forget about my dad,” Steph said quietly.
For a moment, no one said anything. “They’ll have to handle themselves,” Mike said, not loving the answer even as he said it. “I don’t think we have a choice.”
It was deathly silent in the motel room, almost as if there was nobody there. Mike could sense the despair hanging over them. But there was nothing else he could offer at the moment. Going back was suicide. The Brethren would have the place crawling by now.
Then, out of nowhere, Steph said, “I guess… I agree with Mike.” She shifted in her chair as everyone turned to look at her. “Even though I have my father there.” She paused, and it looked like she was about to cry. But then she composed herself and said, “There’s no way we can go back, not after the numbers they came with. Especially without any gargoyle backup. If there was one thing on our side, it was them. Now they’re gone.” She looked at Mike for a long moment. “To tell you the truth, I don’t know where we can go. We’ll be hunted everywhere, at this point. How do we know the Brethren aren’t outside right now? They could’ve tracked us here easily.”
Julius Brutus raised a hand. “I put wards around the parking lot.”
“And that won’t attract any unwanted magical attention?” Steph pointed out.
JB opened his mouth, then shut it.
Mike rested his forehead on two fingers. He had to think. What could they do, besides sit around and wait for his mother to call? As if his mom really was going to call. She was the enemy, not an ally. Who else was there for them to turn to?
Just then, Mike’s necklace buzzed. Speak of the devil, Mike thought. It’s about time, Mom. You better have a good explanation for this.He shushed the room, then removed the Amp from his neck. “Does this have a speaker mode?” His mom owed everyone an explanation, not just him, and he figured they should all get to hear it.
Steph held out a hand. Mike passed her the Amp. She muttered a few words, then placed the Amp on the bed.
“Hello?” Mike said aloud.
“Mister Prior, I’ve been waiting for you. Tell your friend he should answer his own phone calls.”
Mike looked up, startled. The voice was deep. And definitely not his mother’s. He glanced over at Aaron, whose eyes narrowed.
“Who is this?”
The voice laughed. “I’m insulted. Surely they taught you about Evan Morningstar?”
Mike racked his brains. Evan Morningstar? Had Stockton mentioned that name in one of Mike’s history lessons? If he had, Mike sure didn’t remember. Mike looked around the room, his blank stare reflected in his friends’ faces.
“Uh, no, not really.”
There was silence for a moment. “Then perhaps you’ve heard of my name as uttered by those who fear me. I am Dementae.”
Mike heard a curse from one of the girls, probably Steph. Dementae. How had he gotten a necklace? Maybe from Stockton, or another one of the teachers… or his mom…
“Nothing to say, Mike?”
Mike coughed. “Yeah, we’ve heard of that one.”
“Ah, good. So you know who you’re dealing with. Now listen up – I don’t know how many of you survived the little house-crashing party I sent for you, but you will bring the remainin
g Guardians to the Chateau de Vincennes, a castle east of Paris where the Grey Talons set up shop. Or, should I say, used to set up shop.”
The silence in the room was palpable. Mike stared at the stone on the bed. As much as he hated DuBois, Mike didn’t want the whole clan decimated…
“Or what?” Aaron said, his nostrils flaring. Clearly, he was more angry than scared at this point – maybe the only Guardian who had his emotions prioritized in that manner.
“Who is this?” Dementae sounded irate. “Identify yourself.”
“Aaron Caulderon, Electrokinetic Division, Skyfire clan.” For good measure, Aaron added a slew of curses.
“Thank you, Mr. Caulderon, you will be the first to die.”
That shut Aaron up real good.
“You will bring the remaining clan members to Chateau de Vincennes. I usually don’t do threats, but Mr. Caulderon, you earned one – if you ever hope to see Sepulchra, Stockton, or any of your god-forsaken clan again, you will show up. Tomorrow night, nine o’clock.”
A flicker of hope lit inside Mike’s stomach. If Dementae was grouping his mom with the captured Guardians, maybe she wasn’t a betrayer after all…
“How do we get there?” Julius Brutus said. “Our gargoyles are gone.”
Mike threw him a look that said idiot! JB opened and shut his mouth, realizing what he had done.
“Is that so?” Dementae paused. “In that case, there is a secret portal in Manhattan, although I doubt its confidentiality will be needed much longer. It is located in the basement of four-eighty west one-eighty-seventh street, in the boiler room. I will take the necessary steps to configure it to lead you straight here.” Dementae was silent for a moment. “Anything more to say, Mister Caulderon? Mister Prior? No? Tomorrow night, then. Au revoir.”
The opal went dead.
“Way to go, JB,” Mike muttered. He took the amp and placed it around his neck, smoothing out the sheets on the bed where it had laid.
No one said anything for a while. Finally, Julius Brutus broke the silence by dipping his head into a pillow and sobbing loudly. Mike almost strangled him then and there, but he held himself back.
“I guess we’ll go, then,” Steph said quietly.
Mike turned to stare at her.
“Are you insane?” Aaron said. “Dementae just invited us to our own funeral. And we’re going to go?”
Mike racked his brains for an alternative, but the more he thought about it, the more he agreed with Steph. Where else were they going to go? With no portal and no Gargoyles, they couldn’t go to the other clans. Cassandra had made it clear that they weren’t welcome back at Slayerland. And besides – now they knew where their clan was. And Dementae. If they could somehow defeat him…
“She’s right,” Mike said. “What else are we going to do? Dementae’ll have the Brethren combing the country until they find us. There’s no where we can go for help. If we’re ever going to finish this, we’ll have to do it on his terms.”
“His terms?” Annabella protested. “His terms are for all of us to be dead!”
Mike got up and put an arm on Annabella’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay, really.” He looked at his Guardian family through intense eyes. “I have a plan, and it’s going to work.”
“Oh yeah?” Aaron said. “And what’s that?”
Mike went over to the TV. It was a really old model, from the eighties or something. He fingered the two-pronged antenna. “Dementae doesn’t know we have gargoyles left.”
“Neither do we,” Steph pointed out.
Mike said, “True, but let’s assume Nukes and Amadeus figured out a place to rest. Dementae also doesn’t know how many Guardians are coming. You heard him, he said to bring whoever was still alive. He doesn’t know there are six of us.
“Four of us will surrender to Dementae. The other two will take Nukes and Amadeus to Chateau de Vincennes and find the rest of our clan. They’re alive – Dementae said so himself.”
“What if he’s not keeping them at the castle?” Kiva asked.
Mike noticed her for the first time, really. She was pretty, with dimples and an innocent look in her eyes that made him feel comfortable around her. He wondered if she was dating someone – not for himself, but because she seemed more worried about finding the rest of the clan than the others were.
“A chance we’ll have to take,” Mike allowed. “But I’ll bet they’re there. Dementae’s not going to lure us to one place if he plans on transporting us somewhere else.”
“Unless he’s just going to flat out kill us,” Aaron said morbidly.
Mike eyed his Guardian brother. “I guess we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”
Chapter Thirty Nine
As it turned out, Nukes and Amadeus had found a safe place to hide. They neglected to share the details of their hideout – apparently they weren’t trusting anyone these days, even the Guardians who were supposed to protect them – but they did fly to meet the Guardians at their motel. Thankfully, no Brethren attack followed their arrival, and in a few minutes it was arranged. JB and Kiva were to go with Nukes and Amadeus, while Mike, Aaron, Annabella and Steph would set out for New York and hopefully survive a face-to-face encounter with Dementae. Aaron had begged to be sent with the Gargoyles, but it was Steph who pointed out that Dementae knew he was one of the survivors. If Aaron didn’t show, he would know something was up.
Mike saw Julius Brutus grasping Nukes’s thick neck, glasses taped on to his face for the long journey. He looked like a kid about to get on the first roller coaster of his life. Kiva, on the other hand, sat rather comfortably on Amadeus, as if she had been waiting on this forever. Mike realized he didn’t know anything about her. It was a strange realization that he was about to go to war with people he didn’t really know. But maybe that was how all wars worked. You were thrown into a battle against a bunch of people you had nothing to do with, save for the color of your uniform and the piece of land you were standing on.
Mike wished both of them good luck, then watched as the Gargoyles kicked into the air. Mike heard JB scream. Then it was lost on the wind, and the Gargoyles disappeared from sight.
The Guardians slept the whole night and much of the following day, using the remaining daylight hours to prepare for the upcoming ride. They went shopping for a few hours – if for no other reason than to get fresh clothes – and planned attack strategies, escape devices, and brainstormed about anything that might help. Each scenario seemed more farfetched than the next, but it helped pass the time, and it seemed logical to have something prepared for when they got to the castle.
The ride to New York was a long one; traffic on I-95 was brutal. The Guardians were unusually quiet, but understandably so. Mike knew their prospects weren’t good. An assault against Dementae’s forces… even Mike doubted the logic of his own plan. By now Amadeus and Nukes would be across the ocean, and they would be starting their approach to Chateau de Vincennes. If they had made it. Who knew what kind of Brethren force was deployed in Europe, let alone inside the castle itself.
The Guardians finally reached Washington Heights, driving past Dominicans lounging on the street corners and Jews scurrying by in skullcaps and button-down shirts. Mike thought it to be an odd mix, but then again, so was a group of humans and gargoyles. Not that it was a good comparison, but whatever. He parked the SUV at a hydrant across the street from apartment building four-eighty. He didn’t want to park illegally, but there were no other spots, and besides – the last thing he had to worry about was whether the car was going to be towed.
The boiler room was not very large. True to its name, it had a boiler, but not much else. The walls were painted a peeling blue, and pipes stuck out from the ceiling. Mike thought for a moment it was a joke, until Steph spotted it.
“Look!”
She pointed at the wall. To a normal onlooker it would be merely a large oval etched into the paint. But to Mike, it looked exactly like a miniature portal, with room enough for one person at
a time.
“How do we turn it on?” Mike wondered.
Steph closed her eyes for a moment, then walked over to the wall and whispered something. The blue paint turned into liquid, and the portal was activated.
Aaron gaped. “How did you…”
“My dad taught me,” Steph said quickly. “Come on.” She rushed through the goo and disappeared.
When Mike exited the portal, he noticed he was outside. A humid wind blew in his face, the smell of the ocean entering his nose. The stars were visible all around, as there were no man-made lights as far as the eye could see. In fact, it took a moment before Mike could see anything at all.
When his eyes finally did adjust, he could see that he was not in a castle.
The Guardians were in a half-moon amphitheater, set against a black oceanic horizon – Mike could hear the waves from behind the backdrop. They were standing on the stage, seemingly scheduled to perform an unscripted play to a crowd of zero. The stands looked to be in decent shape, but they were made out of stone, and didn’t appear modern at all. In fact, the whole setting seemed to be of ancient architecture.
“Where are we?” Aaron asked nobody in particular.
“Fantastic question,” said a voice. Mike’s head snapped to the stands, where he strained to make out a single figure, sitting in the first row. He was clad in black robes, with a chromed head that reflected the full moon. An amp hung from his neck.
Mike only had one guess. “Dementae.”
The man stood and bowed. “At your service, Mister Prior.” He walked slowly up towards the stands. Instead of stepping up, however, his whole body rose to stage-level, as if he was being carried by a cloud beneath him.
“Welcome to Caesarea, a gorgeous little excavation site in the northern part of Israel. Ever heard of this place?”
“No,” Mike said, muscles clenched. He was uneasy about this latest development, but it did have its merits. JB and Kiva would have an easier time getting to Chateau de Vincennes if Dementae wasn’t there. And the longer Mike could stall Dementae in – Caesarea, was it? – the longer JB and Kiva would have to free the Guardians.
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