A Shade of Vampire 40: A Throne of Fire(47)

“He wouldn’t have been able to do this on his own. He was too weak,” Tejus muttered.

“Why weren’t we told of a prisoner down in the dungeons?” I asked.

“We didn’t think he posed that much of a threat. Queen Trina was dead, as were the rest of the Acolytes. We assumed. I didn’t imagine for a moment that the entity would have much use for him.” Tejus’s reply was furious, and I knew from my own experience that the anger was directed inward.

Ash muttered something about ‘pride before a fall’ and Tejus silenced him with a stony glare.

“Do we go after him?” Lucas asked.

“Would there be any point?” I asked the sentries.

“The stone is marked with the old Acolyte rune,” Ash replied, looking closely at the slab. “It probably leads back down to the cove—they have a temple there. I don’t think we should risk it. Not now, anyway.”

“All right,” I agreed. “Move the stone back. Is there a seal you can put on it?”

“We can put a barrier in place.” Ash nodded. “I’ll get the ministers on it. In the meantime, we need to try to understand what the entity wants with Jenus—I thought it was too powerful to want another servant. What can Jenus do for it that it can’t do for itself?”

That was the question. If Tejus was right, and his brother was indeed weak, then what would this power want with him? And who had rescued him in the first place?

We made our way back up the stairs. When we entered the hallway, Ben, River, Sofia, Rose, Caleb, Hazel, Ruby, Grace and Lawrence were waiting for us.

“What happened?” Hazel asked. “Has he gone?”

I filled in the other members on the situation with Tejus’s brother.

Hazel was the first to offer her theory.

“It must have been Abelle. She’s the only Acolyte alive—”

“That we know of,” Ash interrupted. “And she hated Jenus. I know most of what she said was a lie, but I’d swear on my life that wasn’t.”

“Don’t defend her,” Tejus snapped. “If she is in league with the entity then she’s going to be willing to do what it wants. Even if that means pulling my loathsome brother from his sewer.”

“Let’s go over the facts,” I asserted, trying to bring some calm to a debate I could see was about to become heated. “This entity has escaped from the lock that the jinn placed it in. It has raised an army, so we can presume that it’s grown in strength. Yet it has not faced us. I agree with Tejus, I don’t believe that the shadow is the entity itself. If it were, I believe it would speak to us just like it did in the portal. So why has it not fully risen—what is missing?”

“Queen Trina,” whispered Hazel. “He used her from the start, he must have wanted something from her—maybe something more than just opening the portal.”

I nodded. She was the missing piece. Killing her was the only time that the sentries had been one step ahead.

I thought about the entity and its prison of stones.

A non-corporeal being.

“It reminds me of the Elders,” I muttered. “They didn’t have physical form and so took other bodies. I have, mistakenly perhaps, been assuming that the shadow is an effective weapon—but perhaps its army can’t take on physical form, and neither can the entity itself.”

“Which is what it needed Queen Trina for, but its only option now is my brother,” Tejus said.

“And Benedict,” Hazel agreed. “Throughout all of this the entity has needed bodies to accomplish what it can’t.”

“But what does it need a body for?” Grace asked quietly. “It has an army, the portal is opened, what is it waiting for?”

“That is what we don’t know,” I replied.

“Shouldn’t we try to stop Jenus from getting to the entity then?” Lucas snapped. “Why are we just standing around doing nothing, waiting for it to come to us?”

“We can’t risk another trip to the cove, not without the right weapons,” Ash replied. “I won’t let my people risk their lives like that.”

“And GASP can’t, we’re too weak,” I reminded Lucas. “It would be a mistake. How do we heal?” I asked Ash.

“Your energy rebuilds itself. Unfortunately, you just need to wait it out.”

I looked from Hazel to Ruby incredulously. This was madness. We didn’t have the time for bed rest.

“What about your crystals, Tejus?” Hazel asked. “Are there more of those around Nevertide? They helped me during the trials.” My granddaughter looked uncomfortable for a moment.