The Triad of Finity (5 page)

“First, the meditation.” All the students took their seats and lit their candles. He reached forward, his smooth white fingers curled around a jagged black crystal. He scraped this against the outermost sand circle, made of pink crystal powder. It ignited in a brilliant ring of low pink flames.

“Remember, the demon seeks a vessel,” he said in a low voice. “You are that vessel. We search among the ethers to find our demon, the one that is meant for us. “
Vampyrethhh …
” he breathed.

“
Vampyrethhh …
” the students repeated. Everyone closed their eyes, even Oliver. He didn’t want to, but not participating meant staying after school, and possibly extra visits from Mr. Crevlyn.

“We begin the search for our demon in the familiar world,” said Mr. VanWick. “Step back inside your mind, search the dark corners. You are looking for a door. …”

They all spoke at once, their answers part of the cadence of the ritual. “I see a door,” they said.

Oliver saw a door in his mind, too. He was treading down a hall with burgundy carpet, its walls solid yet also made of stars. Ahead was the door. Oliver had seen it before: solid black wood with a silver knob and a white Skrit symbol etched into it. This was the symbol of the demon who had once been meant for Bane, but was now meant for Oliver, one of the most ancient and powerful demons in all of history: Illisius.

“Open the door,” instructed Mr. VanWick, “and enter the room.”

Each of the vampire children were experiencing something similar to Oliver: opening a door inside their minds and walking into a room with dark-wood bookshelves, a desk and comfortable chair, and a wide, diamond-shaped window. This was the visual image of the demon’s place in each vampire’s mind, their entry point.

Oliver entered the room. A cold, anxious feeling rushed through him. To come here was to tempt his destiny. One day he would enter this room and it would begin: through the window he would see his demon’s history, as Illisius, in effect, downloaded himself into Oliver’s mind.

But tonight, just like every other time he’d ever been here, what he saw beyond the empty bookshelves, beyond the black desk, out the wide window, was a land made of blood red rock, crooked spires of amethyst and jade here and there, and nearby, a giant statue head with gold coin eyes, lying on the ground. Everything was bathed in golden light from something just out of Oliver’s view, something glowing brilliantly: the Gate. This was Nexia, where he was destined to go to fulfill his destiny. Same as always. The view gave him a chill, but it was also a small comfort. Cohesion had not begun.

“Does anyone see anything new?” asked Mr. VanWick. Oliver heard him distantly, out on the surface of his consciousness, like a voice through a thick window.

There was a frustrated sigh. “Still the sacking of Babylon,” said Lythia disappointedly. Her cohesion had begun, but it was early, and going slowly, as it was supposed to. Her demon had apparently been instrumental in the military efforts of Cyrus the Great and the Persians during the ancient Battle of Opis. She’d been stuck in this same place for a while. The dreams tended to move forward through history chronologically, reaching the present as cohesion got closer.

“Still the Spanish Inquisition for me,” muttered Theo. His demon had been fond of wagering on these types of bloody events. He’d been there for a few weeks, too.

“Just fog,” said Berthold sadly. His cohesion hadn’t started.

“I see something new …” Carly said with a shaking voice. “A field of blood.”

Whispers shot around the room.

“Go on,” said Mr. VanWick.

“The bodies are fresh, scattered like trash,” Carly whispered. “Skulls, ribcages … everything is crushed.”

“You are seeing through Dylea’s eyes,” said Mr. VanWick reassuringly.

The whispers solidified into murmurs. Oliver heard Theo cursing under his breath with jealousy.

“What is the weaponry?”

“There are trenches,” said Carly. “Rifles and bayonets, cannons, artillery streaks in the sky. Some of the bodies have gas masks on.”

“Return,” instructed Mr. VanWick.

Oliver left his room. It took some effort; even though he didn’t want his demon, there was something soothing about the place, a feeling of completeness that was actually somewhat similar to what he felt when Nathan was around, as if having a demon would make him feel more whole, too. He pushed back to the surface of his mind. He opened his eyes and saw the rest of his class doing the same.

Mr. VanWick had picked up his copy of the slim black textbook. Oliver opened his. The book was blank inside, as was everyone else’s.

“
Revelethh Dylea
,” Mr. VanWick whispered to the book. The same image began to appear in everyone’s book. Text and pictures bled onto the pages. There was a detailed sketch of Dylea, a tall, shrouded demon with blue skin, and text titled “France, 1917.”

“Dylea was soul-collecting at the Battle of the Marne,” said Mr. VanWick, reading the text. He looked at Carly, and Oliver noticed the slight furrow of his brow. “Dylea’s timeline is nearing yours.” He shook his head. “It’s astonishing; just yesterday you saw her in the French Revolution. That’s over one hundred years in just a night … but, I guess it’s nothing new for this class.”

“For
some
of us,” Lythia muttered with a scowl. Oliver glanced at her and found her staring directly at him. She looked like she was studying him, and as soon as she saw that Oliver had noticed her, she looked away.

“All right, back to your rooms,” instructed Mr. VanWick. “We will continue the observation, and deepen the connection.” He reached out and used the black crystal to ignite the next inner sand circle, this one made of lavender powder. “Concentrate,” he commanded.

Oliver sank back into his mind, back into the hallway, to the door, and back into the room, walking inside like he always did—

But it had changed.

Over on the left bookshelf, a handful of black books were stacked neatly, held in place by an iron bookend in the shape of a brooding gargoyle, and out the window …

Nexia was gone.

For the first time in over a year of cohesion sessions, the view out the diamond-shaped window was different.

Oh no
, Oliver thought.
It’s starting
.

Chapter 4

The Vampyr

Oliver saw an endless, luminous gray fog stretching from one edge of the window to the other. It was thick and undulating up and down. There was something solid in the corner of the window: the edge of a metal railing. Below that was lapping water, but not normal water. This substance was black and clear, with stars beneath its surface. It reminded Oliver of the water at the Shoals. Edge water. The material between worlds.

Oliver understood, as Mr. VanWick had explained, that the books on the shelves were the visual representation of Illisius’s memories being added to Oliver’s mind. And what he was seeing out the window was the view out of Illisius’s eyes, from some time in the past. It looked like he was in the process of crossing from one world to another, as higher demons could do. But where was this, and when?

Since this was the first dream, this should be a memory from long ago, except … this wasn’t technically Oliver’s first dream. He’d already been visited by Illisius on the night that Dean had died in the school gym. And that dream had been different than a normal cohesion dream because Illisius had actually spoken to him, shown him Nexia, the Gate. … So, Oliver had no idea if his dreams would follow the normal pattern of the other students. But either way, the fact that he was having another dream could not be a good thing.

The ship bobbed in the starry water, fog blowing by—

“AAAAAAA!”

The scream tore through Oliver’s mind. The window and room blurred away. Oliver was sucked back up to reality. He opened his eyes to find that everyone else had returned to the classroom, too. There was a blinding light to his right.

“Get the shackles!” Mr. VanWick instructed tersely, leaping to his feet. Across the circle, Maggots dutifully spun and rushed to the piles of junk behind him. “Everyone! Goggles on!”

Oliver slipped his large black welder’s goggles over his eyes. The room disappeared in a dark green tint, except for the brilliant light. It was thrashing about, just on the other side of Berthold, who was edging away. The light was golden with rainbow swirls arcing around it like Oliver had seen in Dr. Vincent’s force resonance imager. In the center of that light was Carly, pulled to a standing position, floating, her feet a few inches off the floor.

“Keep your distance,” Mr. VanWick advised, his own goggles over his eyes. As everyone backed away, he took the chains from Maggots, a set of four thick, titanium shackles connected by heavy, jangling loops, and moved toward Carly. He quickly fastened the shackles to her ankles, then wrists. Just as he was connecting the last one, a demonic, multi-pitched screech tore through the room. Mr. VanWick leapt backward, latching the shackles with a bulky padlock to a huge ring that was bolted in the floor.

And then the
vampyr
arrived. A fluid silver form burst into existence in a blinding flash. It slithered through the air like a shark, all gleaming movement and blazing red eyes, its fangs bared, its shrieking endless.

Even having seen this before, first when Bane’s
vampyr
emerged from Emalie during the Anointment, and then in all the times since when students had received theirs in class, Oliver still found himself shrinking away from the sight. He knew from Mr. VanWick’s teachings that there was no danger of the
vampyr
ending up inside anyone other than Carly; each
vampyr
was specifically matched with its vampire vessel.

Technically, “sentenced” was a better word, because a
vampyr
was a demon that had been convicted of wrongdoing by the Architects. The word
vampyr
literally translated to “criminal” in many worlds. These demons weren’t convicted because they were evil, at least by any human standard, but there were many rules that governed the higher dimensions, most of which had to do with maintaining world boundary integrity and the balance of influence.

The
vampyr
hated being sentenced to eventually die stuck inside a human shell. A vampire’s life of four to five hundred years was incredibly short when compared to the near-infinite existences of demons. And a vampire’s set of powers, while amazing to a human, was insultingly limited compared to, for example, Dylea’s, the demon who had been sentenced to Carly.

And so there was danger in this moment of cohesion, these few seconds while Dylea was in the room but not yet inside Carly. She was furious, frenzied. If you got too close, she might rip your head off just to cope with her own agony.

Once the
vampyr
was in its host, it mellowed. Dylea and Carly would blend, influencing one another, and like any demon, Dylea would quickly figure out how to make the best of the situation. But in this moment, watching a loose
vampyr
thrash and spin in fury like a trapped animal, Oliver could see why generations of vampires had been searching for a way to break free of this existence. This creature would give anything to open the Gate and change its fate.

“Almost there,” said Mr. VanWick.

The
vampyr
spiraled closer and closer to Carly. Her eyes were closed, her body seemingly in a trance. Still, her mouth was twisted in a grimace, like this wasn’t fun for her either.

The shrieking increased, causing a humming headache that speared through Oliver’s brain, and then finally the creature wrapped in on Carly and sucked into her body through the top of her chest, just below her neck, the same area where Oliver had once seen Emalie’s soul depart.

Silence. The red eyes, the silver form, the gold light and rainbow swirls all vanished, and the room was plunged into darkness. Everyone’s candles had been extinguished in the rush.

Oliver pulled off his goggles. Carly was lying on the floor, curled in a ball. Her eyes flickered open. They had been brown. Now they glowed bright ruby. She blinked hard and stood up, then surveyed the room dazedly, looking from one of them to the next. Her gaze fell on Oliver, and its contempt felt familiar. He could practically hear her thinking that they were all pathetic lambs.

“
Tch
,” Carly clucked to herself, hands on her hips. “Later, kiddies,” she muttered with a half smile. “I need some fresh meat.”

She turned and sauntered out of middle school forever.

“Lucky,” said Berthold quietly, crawling back to his pillow seat beside Oliver.

“Let’s take a short break,” said Mr. Van Wick. “We’ll begin again in a few minutes.” He had produced a leather notebook, the official Cohesion Log, and had it open in his lap, but Oliver saw him staring at the door, his brow again in a curious furrow, like something wasn’t quite right. Oliver guessed that it had something to do with the speed of it. Carly’s cohesion, beginning to end, had taken barely a week.

Oliver heard whispering voices and glanced across the dwindling circle—only five of them left now—to where Lythia was talking in Theo’s ear. They were both glaring at Oliver, and Theo was nodding grimly.

“What?” said Oliver, hating that feeling that someone was talking about him.

Lythia leveled a lethal gaze at him. “You know what, Nocturne.”

“No, I don’t,” Oliver snapped back.

“Oh, whatever.” Lythia rolled her eyes dramatically.

“Guess you’ll be next,” Theo muttered at him. He looked around the circle. “And then that will be that for the rest of us.”

“What are you talking about?” Oliver asked.

“Just mind your own business!” Lythia snarled. “And leave us alone.”

“Fine.” Oliver stood and headed for the door. He glanced over at Dean. “Wanna take a walk?”

Dean got up, stumbling against the wall. Mr. VanWick hadn’t provided him with goggles, so the cohesions always left him somewhat blind for a while. He walked over to Oliver, rubbing at his eyes.

“Minion! Sock the pretty perfect one for me!” Lythia shouted.

“Oh shut up and do it yourself!” Dean moaned, but then he dutifully turned and swung a fist at Oliver. Luckily, due to his partial blindness, he only grazed Oliver’s shoulder. “Sorry,” he added.