Jack Templar and the Lord of the Demons (The Jack Templar Chronicles Book 5) (11 page)

I grabbed his arm. “The Underworld. You said you knew how to access it.”

Tomas scanned the crowd nervously as if trying to figure out whether there was time or not. I didn’t really care. After everything we’d just been through, I wasn’t leaving without the information.

“There’s a monastery north of here in Tuscany. In the mountains. A small town called Anghiari. That’s where you will find the mouth to the Underworld.”

I nodded and signaled to the others to run to the archway. The minotaur guards didn’t seem interested in us at all. They all stared at Re’gan.

The vampire turned as we headed to the archway, and I heard her barely whisper the words, “Stop them.”

Immediately, the minotaurs closed ranks in front of the exit.

Tomas stepped between his sister and us. “Re’gan, we promised them.”

Re’gan had a crazed look in her eyes, even worse than when she’d lost her temper before. “I slew Draxo,” she said. “I run the Games now.”

Tomas’s eyes narrowed. “The plan was that we would run the Games
together
, sister. Or have you forgotten?”

Re’gan shrugged. “I changed my mind. I want it all to myself. I’m sure you can understand.”

With a scream, she attacked Tomas. He was quick though and had his sword up to parry her wild blow. They engaged and the crowd went insane. Tonight, they were getting their money’s worth at the Games.

Even the minotaurs were caught up in the epic battle taking place on the dais. They moved away from the archway.

“Move, move,” I said softly, trying not to attract attention.

We ran through the archway, grabbed our gear, and left the chanting mob and the twin vampires battling to the death. I found it sad that they’d been freed from Draxo only to find out that greed was the real thing keeping them prisoner.

I didn’t have time to give it much thought. I had my friends to think about. As we rushed through the streets of Rome, trying to stay out of sight as much as possible and avoid creach eyes, I had a dark thought. We’d just survived certain death in order to get directions to enter the Underworld, the land of Death. I’m not sure how many people would say that was a success.

It took over an hour, but we made our way to the train station and managed to get on a northbound train that would take us close to our destination. As we all settled into our seats, I made sure to sit next to T-Rex. He’d saved us all, but he looked shaken up from the whole ordeal.

“You okay?” I asked.

He nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

I could tell from his voice that he wasn’t fine.

“It’s all right,” I said. “You made it through. You’re here with us.”

I pulled him toward me with my arm over his shoulder. He leaned in and put his head on my chest. A few seconds later, I felt his shoulders heave as he let himself cry. It didn’t last long and when he was done, he leaned back in own seat, wiped his nose and gave me a nod.

“Thanks,” he said. “I guess I needed that.”

“You really came through, T-Rex,” I said. “If it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t have made it.”

“I was so scared though,” he said. “I thought I was going to die for sure. That we all were. I’m not brave like you. I’m not cut out for it.”

I smiled. “Brave like me?” I laughed. “I’m scared to death, T-Rex. All the time. My legs are always shaking. Half the time I think I’m going to pee myself!” I nudged him in the arm. “I’m no braver than you are.”

T-Rex smiled, but I knew he’d heard this pep talk before. He just leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Remember what it felt like not to be scared?”

“Barely,” I said. “Seems like a long time ago when we were just kids riding our bikes in Sunnyvale.”

“Going down to McNabb’s Custard Shoppe,” T-Rex said, groaning.

“Grabbing a large cone with rainbow sprinkles on a hot day,” I said, enjoying the memory with him.

“Nothing better,” T-Rex said.

“Nothing better,” I agreed.

“Jack,” he started, his eyes still closed. “Do you think we’ll ever feel that way again? You know? Without fear?”

I hesitated but then said, “Sure, T-Rex. We’ll feel that way again.”

“Do you really think so?” he asked, real hope in his voice.

“Yeah, I do,” I replied, knowing it was only a half-truth at best.

As the train sped through the night toward our entry point into the Underworld, I didn’t have the heart to tell him I was certain we would feel that way again only because if we failed, we wouldn’t feel anything at all. Because if we failed at our quest, we’d be dead.

We both leaned back and closed our eyes. I hoped T-Rex dreamed of Sunnyvale when we were just normal kids, but those weren’t the dreams I had. All I could think of were the terrors that waited us in the Underworld and nightmares that were waiting for us just around the corner. Maybe someday we wouldn’t have any fear, but that night there was plenty of it to go around.

I
t was
late afternoon when we finally hiked the distance from the train station a few towns over and reached a hill overlooking the village of Anghiari. It was difficult from the distance to see too much detail of the village itself, but the building that loomed over it all was impossible to miss.

The monastery squatted on top of the craggy mountain like a giant bug clinging to a rock in a heavy wind. The walls were built from the same stone as the cliffs that dropped down to the valley floor, making it hard to know where the wall ended and the mountain started. The building was circular and tapered as it rose nearly four stories into the air. The tiled roof was strapped down with a mesh of thick metal bands. To an outside observer who didn’t know what the place really was, it would be easy to assume the metal was there to protect from the severe weather and sharp wind from the mountains. In reality, the roof and the entire building served a completely different purpose.

“Hard to believe this place is right out in the open,” Xavier said. “I thought it was just a myth.”

“You mean you’ve heard of this place before?” I asked.

“Didn’t any of you pay attention in class?” Xavier shot back.

“We didn’t have much time for class before the goblin army showed up if you remember,” Will said.

Xavier shot Daniel a look as if to ask what his excuse was.

“I was too busy practicing with weapons,” he said, tapping his fake nose. “Didn’t make many of my classes. When I did, it was usually to catch up on my sleep.”

“Well, I already told you the basics,” Xavier said. “But I’ve been reading up on it on the way out here using the train’s public Wi-Fi.”

Internet access was a luxury for us. The creach had their spies everywhere, infiltrating all law enforcement, military, and government. We’d long known that the creach used not only supernatural powers to try to track us down, but good old-fashioned surveillance too. None of us carried cell phones or used Internet connections that could trace back to us.

“What’d you find out?” T-Rex asked.

“Remember how I told you a story about a monastery built over the top of a hole in the ground?”

“You said the priests thought it was a doorway to the underworld,” I said. “So they built the monastery over it like a cork in a bottle.”

“Sounds to me like the priests had taken the cork out of few bottles themselves, if you ask me,” Will scoffed.

Xavier scowled at Will, but he continued. “The Black Guard searched for the monastery in question. They found it.”

“This one?” Eva asked.

“No, that one was in Poland,” Xavier explained. “More of a castle really, but same thing.”

“Then why didn’t we go there?” Daniel asked. “Our vacation to Rome was fun and all, but it did almost get us killed.”

Xavier shook his head. “The place in Poland is a fake. I mean, there are cool stories about it that you can find online, but scientists studied the hole in the ground. It’s just a small cave system. Nothing supernatural about it. So I thought the whole idea of a monastery built over a gate to the Underworld was a dead end.” He pointed to the monastery in front of us. “Until now.”

T-Rex squinted at the building in the distance. “How can you be sure this is the right place?” he asked.

“Look closely at the walls. Notice anything odd?” Xavier asked.

“No windows,” Eva said. “No openings to fight from defensive positions.”

I was about to point out the row of windows along the walls when I stopped myself. Squinting, I realized they were just outlines of windows painted on the stone. Eva’s vampire eyes had likely picked up on that immediately.

“Why even bother painting them on?” I asked.

“So it would look more normal, I guess.”

“Yeah, because nothing’s weird about a windowless building with fake windows on it,” Will quipped.

“So no windows, no openings,” Xavier said. “And then there’s the roof. Can you see it?”

We were far enough away that we could still see the top of the monastery’s tile roof encased in metal straps.

“Look like a prison,” T-Rex said with a shudder.

“Exactly,” Xavier said, beaming. “While most monasteries were fortified to keep people out, this was only built with one purpose in mind. To keep things in.”

I noticed his use of the word
things
instead of people. I imagined nasty demons trying to claw their way out of the earth, and I shuddered.

“It can’t really be a door to the Underworld, can it?” Daniel asked. “I mean, right here on the surface for everyone to see?”

“Tomas seemed to think so,” I replied. “Not the most trustworthy vampire in the world, but it’s the only lead we have.”

“I came across one cool story about this place,” Xavier said.

“I have a feeling that what you think is cool and what I think is cool are completely different,” T-Rex said.

“So, right before they built this place, a rich noble owned this land and found a cave on it. He put up a big reward for anyone willing to be lowered into the hole on a rope all the way to the bottom. A young man volunteered; the money offered was more than he would ever see in a lifetime of working the fields. So they tied a rope around him and lowered him slowly down with only a dagger and a candle.

“He’d only made it thirty yards down before he began to scream hysterically and beg to be pulled back up. The men helping him were frightened, so they hauled him back up. The story is that his hair had turned completely white and that he babbled like an idiot, unable to form a single word in his native tongue. He stayed that way until the day he died.”

“Great story,” T-Rex muttered. “Thanks for sharing.”

“After that, the noble supposedly bankrolled the monastery you see today.”

“So it’s not that old then,” I said.

Xavier shrugged. “There are other stories that say the monastery was here hundreds of years earlier. That no one knows who really built it,” Xavier said. “So who knows what’s true?”

“All I know if that we have a fortified monastery built over a bottomless pit,” Daniel said. “Sounds about right to me. We just need to get in there and then what? Climb down the hole until we run into the Lord of the Demons?”

“That part I don’t know,” Xavier said.

“I’ll tell you one thing; I hope you were paying attention when you made your last batch of spider wire,” Will said to Xavier. “Cause it sounds like we’re going to be using it real soon.”

“The creach must have gone through our stuff, so how much to do you still have?” I asked. Xavier’s spider wire was perfect. Strong as a steel cable and as thin and light as thread – if he had any left.

Xavier rummaged in his bag. “All there. At least one vampire kept his word.” He looked up, doing a quick calculation in his head. “Seven thousand yards,” he said. “Give or take.”

“A little over a thousand yards each,” I said. “Do you think that’ll be enough?”

“Are you really asking whether a thousand yards of spider wire is enough to get from the Earth’s surface down into the Underworld?” Will asked. “Man, we’re really not back in Sunnyvale anymore.”

“Xavier,” Eva said, stepping into the group. “Can you rig it so that we can go two on a line? Is it strong enough?”

Xavier barked out a short laugh. “Strong enough? The spider wire could lower a car. We could all attach to one line if we wanted.”

“We could go down the whole seven thousand yards that way,” I said.

“You think it goes down that far?” Daniel asked. “What is that, like three miles?”

“Three point nine miles, actually,” Xavier said.

“That one guy only had to go thirty yards down to see something that scared him half-to death, turn his hair white, and scramble his brain,” T-Rex said. “Can you imagine what we’ll see four miles down?”

I looked up at the monastery, trying to imagine it being built over a pit that extended miles into the earth. It seemed impossible.

“There’s one problem with us all going on one line,” Xavier said.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“The devices I built to pull someone up the wire, like the ones you and Will used to climb up the side of Notre Dame, remember?” he asked.

Did I remember climbing up to the top of Notre Dame Cathedral in the middle of a thunderstorm to battle gargoyles and a band of ancient vampires? Uh, yeah, I did. I just nodded my head for Xavier to continue.

“Well, the problem is that those will pull up three people at most,” Xavier said.

“So,” Will said, “what you’re saying is that we could all get down on one line, but only three of us are coming back up.”

“Exactly,” Xavier said.

“I can stay up here,” T-Rex offered. “If that’s any help at all.”

I patted him on the back. “We’ll take two different lines, but you can certainly stay on top if you want. This is purely voluntary; you know that.”

“And you know he’ll end up coming with us,” Will said, beaming. “He always does.”

“All right, here’s the plan,” I said to the group. “We split up and enter town in three groups. Eva and Xavier, you guys look for any supplies you think might be helpful. Flashlights, pry bars, compasses, anything you can think of. Will and T-Rex, you’re on food duty.”

“Right on,” T-Rex said.

“Don’t get too excited. We’re carrying it in with us, so we’re talking protein bars, those nutrient pastes the runners use, that kind of stuff,” I said.

“Sounds great,” T-Rex moaned.

“What are you and Daniel going to do?” Eva asked.

I nodded to the monastery. “We’re going to get inside and see what’s in there.” I looked around the group, every face eager to get going on the tasks I’d given them, willing to follow me, willing to trust me, even though I felt like I had no real idea what I was doing. The sense of responsibility for my friends hit me hard.

“Let’s meet at the town square in two hours. When we meet up, I want everyone to have thought hard about whether you really want to come on this one. We don’t have any idea what we’re walking into or really have a plan at all.”

“You mean unlike the other times when we were so organized?” Will asked.

Everyone laughed. It was true; every step of our quest we’d flown by the seats of our pants and escaped unharmed. Well, one of our group was a vampire and another was now a werewolf, so maybe unharmed wasn’t the right word. We were alive, and our quest was still within our grasp. That counted for something.

“Still,” I said, “this one feels different. I just want you to think about it. No judgment if anyone wants to sit this one out. Have your decision when we meet in two hours.”

Everyone nodded. Eva and Xavier left first, taking the left fork in the road. Then Will and T-Rex took the right.

I looked over at Daniel who was staring after Eva. I hit him in the shoulder to snap him out of whatever deep thought he’d lost himself in.

“You all right?” I asked.

Daniel shook his head. “The way she looks at me, it’s like she wants to rip my throat out.”

“C’mon,” I said. “She looked at you like that back at the Academy before any of this happened.” The joke only got a weak smile out of him. “Besides, the reason for that ring on your finger is that you were the one trying to do the throat ripping.”

Daniel rubbed the Templar Ring. “I guess you’re right.”

“First time for everything,” I joked. “What do you say? Ready to go see if there’s really a gate to the Underworld over there?”

“I remember I once told you I’d follow you even to the Underworld to finish our mission,” Daniel said. “I didn’t think we’d literally be going there. It was more of an expression.”

“Too late,” I laughed. “Come on. Let’s scout this place out. My gut tells me this is going to get interesting, fast.”