Jack Templar and the Lord of the Werewolves (Book #4 of the Templar Chronicles) (17 page)

“He must have had his reasons,” Eva said.

“I hope you will never have such reasons,” Kaeden said to her. “It would be a shame to allow such beauty to wither.”

I cleared my throat, feeling a little ridiculous the second I did it. But I felt better when I saw that Daniel looked jealous too. Kaeden smirked at the two of us like we were all just teenage boys who all liked the same girl, and he knew he had the upper hand. I had to remind myself that only one of us was a two-thousand-year-old werewolf from ancient Rome.

“But back then, Vitus was young and handsome,” Kaeden said. “Wealthy. Charming. Smart. And completely terrified of growing old. Much like your grandfather, he set out to discover ways to cheat death. To become something more than human.”

“To become a monster,” Eva said.

Kaeden nodded. “Yes, but one with eternal life. That was the goal.”

“You make it sound like this was all Vitus,” Daniel said. “Like you were some innocent bystander.”

Kaeden scowled and looked only at Eva when he answered.. “No, he began the quest, but I bought into his delusion. Together, we sent out emissaries. We poured our families’ gold into the search, nearly bankrupting ourselves in the process. But in the end, we found what we wanted. In fact, we found more than we’d bargained for.”

Kaeden grew silent for a full minute, and we all let the time stretch out. He was clearly gearing himself up to tell us this last part of his story. My scalp tingled and my skin turned to gooseflesh as a cold wind passed through the great hall, making the burning torches flutter. It creeped me out. I had a hunch some evil power was at work, a power that didn’t like this story being told.

Finally, Kaeden rose. I thought that he might of sensed the same power and changed his mind, but one look and I could tell he was determined to finish the tale. With his jaw set, staring into the distance like it he was lost in a different time and place, he told us the rest of his story.

Chapter 25

“There were stories being told in the Northern mountains, whispered over glasses of ale at taverns in the small towns, dark tales of a strange creature. Normally, the ravings of superstitious commoners would be ignored, but it was just the type of information Vitus and I were willing to pay gold to hear, so it made its way to us. Vitus was immediately excited and we set off to investigate. Just the two of us, without servants or guards, which made me very uneasy.

“We arrived at a small village of Appia, long since crushed to dust by the grinding wheels of time. There we heard of missing children. Of dark shadows that appeared at dusk and moved like creatures without bodies. Of three-horned beasts with red skin and glowing red eyes. The more people we asked, the more versions we heard of the terror haunting that cursed place.”

“What was it?” I asked.

“What were they,” Kaeden corrected. “You see, we had sought out a single creature that could give us eternal life. Instead, we had stumbled onto the site of a truly historical occasion in Creach history. A meeting of the Council of Lords. The heads of all five Creach – werewolves, vampires, zombies, demons, and the last a collection of all the rest – goblins, harpies, bloodslugs and so on. The Lesser Creach.”

“That’s impossible,” Daniel said. “Ren Lucre was the first to unite the Creach. It was the reason the Templars were born. That wasn’t for well over a thousand years later.”

Kaeden shot Daniel such a look of disgust that Daniel’s face fell, almost looking ashamed of his comment.

“Imply again that I’m a liar, and it won’t be the Boros that destroys you today, but my own hands around your neck. Am I clear?”

Daniel swallowed hard and nodded.

The werewolf sniffed and then closed his eyes, collecting his thoughts. “No, this was the first Conclave of the Lords. The threat of the Roman civilization was so great that they felt they had no choice. Rome had united the world of men. Given it roads, governments, and systems that connected it all together. They knew it must be stopped if the monsters were to remain strong. Rome had to fall.

“I know all this because I heard them speak with my own ears. I won’t bore you with the details of how I was able to hear their meeting, how Vitus and I spent three days crawling on our stomachs through a cave-system, how we infiltrated the guards by covering ourselves with goblin blood, how many times we were almost discovered but some twist of fate saved us. It is enough to say we were there and we heard their plans.”

“I don’t get it,” I said, feeling stupid that I’d missed something. “What was their plan?”

“To erase the threat, of course,” Kaeden said. “They plotted nothing less than the fall of the Roman Empire. And within a few generations, they achieved their goal. The world spiraled into a dark age that lasted for centuries.”

“Wait,” Will said. “So you’re saying that the Roman Empire was brought down by the Creach? I thought it was the barbarians. You know, Nero fiddling while Rome burned and all that.”

I was impressed Will had remembered his history, but not too surprised. I remembered the same lesson from our World History class, but Kaeden shook his head.

“Almost all of man’s history is wrong,” Kaeden said. “You should know this by now. The Creach operate behind the scenes, moving things in the direction that suits them. Ren Lucre has become the master at it, getting ready for his final war.”

I caught the bitterness in his voice that bordered on hatred for Ren Lucre and tried to think of a way to use it to our advantage. But before I could say anything, he continued.

“Besides, it was not the Creach that ended Rome’s glory,” Kaeden said sadly. “It was me.”

“You told them how to do it,” Eva whispered. “That’s how you got what you wanted.”

“They wanted to amass an army and march on Rome,” Kaeden explained. “No matter how many tree giants and rock ogres they fielded, the legions of Rome were an unstoppable force. Vitus and I knew this, and we saw that they were doomed to failure. I took heart in this because I loved Rome, but Vitus saw this as his chance.

“He strode into the middle of Conclave, pulling me along, and announced who we were. I thought they might kill us out of hand, and the Lord of the Demons nearly did, but in the end, they listened to what Vitus had to say. He explained how he would do it. How he would cause Rome to rot from the inside. How he would destroy everything that made Rome special. How he would destroy the Republic by putting a Creach dictator on the throne.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, thinking through my world history. “Are you saying that Julius Caesar was a Creach?”

“Of course. He was a werewolf, to be exact,” Kaeden said with some pride.

“But Caesar was killed in the Senate,” Will said. “Stabbed like twenty or thirty times.”

“More than it takes to kill a man,” Kaeden replied. “But necessary to kill a werewolf. By then, it didn’t matter. All the Caesars after him were Creach monsters, leading Rome down the path to its destruction.”

“And for your treason, you got what you wanted,” Eva said, the disgust showing in her voice.

“Yes, the vampires and werewolves had ancient hatreds between them, so each side took one of us for their own. After the transformation, Vitus and I worked together for centuries, protecting our own, pushing back the rise of man when necessary. All was good until Ren Lucre killed my friend. Because of him, vampires and werewolves have been mortal enemies ever since.”

I wanted to tell him that my mother actually killed the old vampire, but I held back. I needed him to keep hating Ren Lucre.

“Then help me defeat him,” I said. “Help me take the fight to your enemy.”

Kaeden laughed, but it was a dark, brooding sound with no joy in it. “The Jerusalem Stones are a power you can’t begin to understand. I was the one who insisted they be spread among the Five Lords for safekeeping after the defeat of the Templars. Why would I ever entrust them to a mere boy? A Templar, no less?”

“Because you know Ren Lucre’s war will be a disaster,” I said. “Just like you knew all-out war against Rome would be.”

Kaeden shook his head. “Ren Lucre has his Creach everywhere. In governments. In the military. When the war comes, the President of the United States will give the order to attack, and half his army will turn on him and fire in the other direction.”

“Surely you can see now that what you did with Rome was wrong,” I said. “Mankind didn’t just step backward, it plunged backward. We went from building the Coliseum and writing poetry to the Dark Ages of savage living and ignorance. Think of what man could have accomplished if we hadn’t lost a thousand years of progress. Can you imagine where we could be now?”

Kaeden’s expression softened, and I felt a surge of hope that I might have a chance reasoning with him.

“I don’t want the Jerusalem Stones to conquer the Creach,” I said. “Only to stop Ren Lucre’s war.”

“And free your father?” Kaeden asked.

The question caught me off-guard. I didn’t imagine he would know about that. I could see he was evaluating me.

“If it came down to it and you had to choose between saving him and stopping Ren Lucre, which would it be?” he asked.

“I would find a way to do both,” I replied. “Just like I would find a way to stop him and still find security for the Creach that want it in the human world.”

“Bah!” Kaeden spat. “That is a fool’s answer. He who tries to have it all ends up with nothing.”

“He who never tries never fails but also never succeeds,” Eva countered. “Not trying, just to avoid failure, that is the coward’s answer.”

Coming from her, it hit Kaeden like a slap on the cheek.

“Help us,” I pleaded. “Don’t let Ren Lucre make the same mistake the Creach Lords wanted to make almost two thousand years ago and start a war in the open. People have so much good in them. Who knows where the world might have been by now if Rome hadn’t fallen. Give humans a chance. They deserve it from you.”

Oops.

And I was doing so well before that last sentence. As soon as it crossed my lips, I had an idea it might be a mistake. It was.

“Deserve,” Kaeden sneered. “What do they deserve? Man has become a disease, rotting out everything that was once clean and pure. The air, the oceans, the soil, all contaminated amid this so-called progress. The Creach cower in shadows, forced into living as myths and ghost stories just to survive. Deserve!” He spit in the floor at my feet. “If I gave them what they deserve, they would already be dead.”

“I’m sorry,” I stammered, “What I should have said was ¬¬–”

“Enough!” Kaeden bellowed. “I’ve listened to this prattle for too long. You invoked the old ways, and so you will have your battle with the Boros. And you and your friends will meet your deaths at its feet
.
” He grinned at me. “If, by some mystery of fate, you survive, then you can have any one wish in my power to give you and safe passage from my lands. Let’s find out exactly what you deserve.” He waved a hand to his guards. “Lock them up. We call the Boros in an hour.”

The guards moved and manhandled us away from the throne toward a side door. I struggled against them, feeling my chance to convert Kaeden slipping away.

“You’re making a mistake, Kaeden,” I yelled.

“No, you made the mistake by bringing your companions here. And now they will all die because of it. Live with that, Jack Templar.”

As the guards forced us through the doorway and into the dark passage deeper into the mountain fortress, a pit formed in my stomach. I realized Kaeden, Lord of the Werewolves, might be right.

Chapter 26

We sat in our dingy prison cell, a torch with a small, smoky flame the only light in the room. By my estimation, we only had ten minutes or so left of our hour-long wait promised by Kaeden. So far, we really didn’t have a strategy.

“Okay,” Will said. “Let’s go through it again to see if we missed anything.”

Daniel groaned. “Saying the same things over and over isn’t going to do anything for us. We need a plan.”

I ignored Daniel’s comment, mostly because it was about the fifth time he’d said it without actually coming up with any ideas.

“So the Boros is a Lesser Creach, but only in name. It’s supposed to be an unstoppable armor-plated beast that fights dirty, moves quick as lightning, has teeth the size of my leg, and likes to eat its victims whole,” I said.

“See, that’s helpful,” Daniel muttered.

“Maybe we could feed you to the Boros so it could choke on the taste of you?” Will said. “You are smelling a little ripe with no shower for the last couple of days.”

Daniel didn’t laugh. This was hard on all of us, but I knew being around werewolves was harder for him than for most because of his father and brothers.

“I hope T-Rex and Xavier are smart enough to stay away from this place,” I said.

“Except that they’re our last trick to play,” Daniel said. “If they can somehow get past the defenses using Xavier’s bag of tricks, they might give us a chance.”

“From what I’m hearing, it would only add to this Boros thing’s dinner menu,” Will said.

“What do think, Eva? Any ideas how to beat this thing?” I asked.

She had stayed huddled in the corner since we’d gotten there and hadn’t said much. When she looked up at me, I saw a strange fear in her eyes.

“I can see the Boros if I try,” she whispered. “I know I should do it, but I can’t bring myself to… to… go there.”

I crouched down on the cold stone floor next to her. She was trembling. “What is it? What’s going on?” I asked softly.

Eva put a hand on either side of her head as if she had a terrible headache and rocked back and forth. “I have all of their memories in here,” she said. “All of Shakra’s, all of Ren Lucre’s, all of Vitus’s. Sometimes images bubble up to the surface. Things that I couldn’t possibly know except through them. When Kaeden told his story, I saw the cave where he and Vitus met the Lords. I could hear him speak.”

I put my hand on her arm and was surprised to find her skin hot, almost feverish. Daniel and Will came closer, careful not to crowd her, but craning to hear what she said.

“They must have seen the Boros at some point, right?” Eva said. “So if I go into those memories, then I can find it. See if I can find a weakness.”