Weeks passed into March. Everything went smoothly after Ryker Alexander left training. Every now and then I caught myself wondering where he ended up and what he was doing with himself. No one else seemed bothered by his absence, not even his two friends. Holly, Atticus, and Achilles were over the moon about the fact he was no longer a part of our hunting group. We were down a man, but we did better than ever without him. There wasn’t a single hunt that went unaccomplished. For the first time since I showed up at the Chamber of Darkness seventeen weeks ago, I felt like I belonged there.
Since we were in the final two months of training, the focus shifted from practice to evaluation. This set everyone on edge. If we failed even a single test it meant the end of our career. We would have to turn in our uniforms and weapons, sign contracts to never speak of the Chamber, and go back to our lives as if nothing happened. The thought made my shoulders tense up and my heart race. I had to finish training, for Danny.
The first test was to be evaluated by Rashne. He revealed what the test entailed only twenty-four hours prior. Most complained about the short time frame to prepare, but I was happy he told us at all. We had to exorcise a demon from a living person’s body while everyone watched. I spent the entire day before the test studying Latin, the Rite of Exorcism, and demonology.
The group of now thirty-three Huntsman initiates gathered in the cavernous hall where we first swore our allegiance. A man tied to a wooden chair sat limp in the center of the grand room. The demon’s looming presence made the place feel dank and foreboding. My eyes flickered to the far corner where I thought I saw another figure cloaked in black with long skeletal hands, but no one was there. A weight pressed down on my chest. I had an overwhelming feeling that someone in the room was going to die.
Rashne stood near the possessed man, holding a clipboard that looked like a toy in his massive blue hands. “Kamlyn Paige, you will attempt to exorcise the demon from this man first. If you will please step up.”
Of course I would be the first to go. I heaved a heavy breath and walked up to meet the Djinn instructor and the sad, pathetic man in the chair. I couldn’t see much of him with his head turned down as far as it was. Matted brown, shoulder-length hair hung low in his face.
“Whenever you are ready, Miss Kamlyn,” Rashne said politely.
I stared up into his swirling blue face. It showed no signs of the harshness I had seen the night we hunted the redcaps. Was it possible I misconstrued his reaction as anger toward me when really it might have been for Ryker? He was the one who abandoned us after all, something I was sure Rashne did not value in a Huntsman.
I let the incident go though still held onto my suspicions. After all, the person in my dream had been wearing gloves, maybe to prevent anyone from seeing his blue hands. Also, Rashne was a Djinn, a species of supernatural beings that were not well known for their friendliness. Sure, Rashne could be the exception to his kind, but then again he might not.
The closer I got to the man in the chair, the more his scent of rotten eggs filled my nostrils. It was the same one from Danny’s room the night of his murder. Immediately, panic overcame me. My throat and chest tightened up, making it hard to breathe. I heaved short intakes of air as I tried to steady myself. It didn’t work. I closed my eyes and let the image of my son’s smiling face fill me up and slow the beating of my racing heart.
“Miss Kamlyn?” Rashne asked in his deep voice.
I opened my eyes. The man had finally raised his head. His bottomless, black eyes fixated on mine. There was a low rumble emanating from the depths of his throat. The joker smile plastered on his bruised and beaten face made my stomach clench with fear.
“You’re right to feel scared, you know?” a raspy, unnatural voice slithered out from his cracked, pale lips.
I couldn’t break my gaze from his. He had me. I knew I shouldn’t have, but I kept listening. Something inside said he wasn’t going to spew a trail of lies that lead nowhere. What he had to say would be useful. It could even be something about Danny’s killer. Only a demon would know where to find its other brethren. I waited for it to continue.
“You have a traitor in the Chamber. It’s only a matter of time before he gets his hands on the Goblet of Demons and unleashes all of us on your lowly word. We will take over mankind and destroy each and every one of—”
A burst of blue light filled the room. The man’s head slumped forward again. He didn’t move. I turned to see Rashne, his hands out in front of him, heaving great breaths as blue flames retreated back into his hands. When they returned to their normal color, he straightened himself up.
“Why’d you do that?” I shouted.
“The test is over for today. Everyone out,” Rashne commanded. “Everyone except you, Miss Kamlyn.”
My face fell. I was as good as gone. He motioned with his finger for me to follow him out of the room. The other initiates stood around and watched as I walked behind the giant Djinn. I’m sure most of them thought it would be the last time they would see me. Holly’s eyes fell.
As the Djinn and I walked through the narrow winding halls, I couldn’t stop thinking about what the demon had said. His inhuman voice filled my head until I couldn’t hear anything else. Rashne banished the demon before it could name the traitor. Had he intended to do that, or was he trying to protect me from being sucked into the demon’s lies? They hadn’t felt like lies. Intuition told me he only spoke the truth.
We stopped in front of a familiar office. Rashne nodded his head toward the large black door and then turned and walked away without a word. I knocked and heard a familiar, erratic voice call from inside.
“Miss Paige, we meet again,” Mr. Rutherford said in a cheery yet frazzled voice. “Please, have a seat.”
His office wasn’t in the same scattered disarray it had been in the last time I was there—at least the chairs were cleared. The desk, however, was still covered in the same stacks of papers and folders as before.
I couldn’t take not knowing what would happen to me. Was I staying? Was I going? I had to know immediately or my heart would burst. My patience lingered somewhere outside the door.
“Sir, am I being kicked out?” I asked eagerly while sitting on the edge of my seat.
He gave a small, nervous laugh as he looked up from the drawer he searched through. “You really have a fear of being asked to leave this place, don’t you?”
With all seriousness I said, “Yes, I do.”
His smile faded as his face fell. He nodded his head with a vacant expression. Long fingers tented at his mouth. Then, he pointed at me and said, “I can tell you really want this. Some kids, they come through here because it’s a family tradition. They feel like they have to. But not you. You want this more than anything because it’s simply what you want.”
What I wanted was to roll my eyes, but I stopped myself. The chitchat was intolerable. “With all do respect, can we just get to the point? Sorry, I don’t mean to be blunt, it’s just that I obviously failed the first test and we were told if we fail even one, then we’re out.”
Casimir Rutherford straightened himself up in his chair and adjusted his necktie. He cleared his throat. “I’ll let you in on a little secret.” He leaned slightly over the desk. “It’s a lie. We just say that so the initiates will try their absolute best. Fear brings out something special in a person, don’t you agree, Miss Paige?”
The use of the word “fear” brought back the first words the demon spoke to me. He said that I was right to be afraid. And I was. There were so many things I was afraid of—losing someone else I loved, Danny’s killer never being brought to justice, getting kicked out of the Chamber, and whoever the traitor was getting their hands on the Goblet of Demons and ending the world as we knew it.
I nodded in agreement to his revelations about fear. “I still don’t understand why I was brought here, sir.”
“The demon seemed to have touched a nerve in you when it spoke. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. What did
it say, exactly?”
“How do you know about—?”
“News travels fast in the Chamber.”
I still wasn’t ready to open up to anyone else about the traitor. I shrugged my shoulders and lied through my teeth. “Just some stuff about my son.” I hoped Rashne wouldn’t reveal to him what the demon had actually said. It was a chance I was willing to take.
“Ah,” he said and looked down. “Well, if you’re sure you are all right, then you are free to go. I hope you have better luck in the future, Miss Paige.”
“Thank you,” I spoke in a hurry as I rushed out.
“Oh, Miss Paige!” he called as I was about to shut the door. “You don’t have to worry about crossing paths with that demon again. Rashne didn’t just banish it. He killed it. It will never spew its hateful lies to anyone else. I hope that brings some comfort to you.”
I forced a weak smile and shut the door behind me. We had never learned about killing demons, only banishing them. Djinns were powerful beings, so maybe they had abilities mere humans did not possess. It was possible.
The questions kept piling up in me until I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to unload on someone. I raced back to my room hoping to find Holly there. When I burst in she was sitting at the desk looking over her notes. She twirled a pen through her curls until it got tangled.
“Hey!” I said and she jumped, ripping the pen from her hair. “Can we talk?”
“Of course,” she said as she rubbed her head. “What about?”
“The test.”
She threw her notes down and sighed. “Oh, thank God! It was killing me not knowing what that was all about.”
“You heard what the demon said, right?”
She squinted her eyes and shook her head. Her red, springy curls moved across her shoulders. “It was kind of hard to hear from where I was standing.”
I sat down in the chair across from hers. I couldn’t keep my legs from bouncing up and down. The weight from my hands on my knees did little to suppress it.
“It said that I was right. That we do have a traitor in the Chamber and they are trying to get ahold of this Goblet of Demons,” I said all in one breath.
Holly only stared with her face cupped in her hand and her elbow rested on the wooden table. “Not this again. You know demons do nothing but lie, right? They get into your head and toy with your emotions and fears.”
“Yeah, I know all that, but this one wasn’t.”
She rolled her eyes and sat up straight. “And how do you know that?”
I smacked my hand down on the table. My nerves couldn’t take it anymore. I closed my eyes for a second to compose myself.
“Call it intuition,” I said calmly.
Her eyes were wide as she stared at me like I was a mental patient. “Okay…let’s say that…”
“We have to do something about it.”
She ruffled her hair with her fingers as she avoided eye contact. Her other hand reached for the pen on the table and twirled it around aimlessly.
“I don’t know. I said it before—I think you should give up on all this and focus on your training. If something’s going on, Head Buhari will take care of it. She’s the best at all this. That’s why she’s in charge.”
“But I think I know who it is!” I exclaimed, bouncing in my seat.
Her green eyes widened. Her red eyebrows raised up in anticipation.
“It’s Rashne.”
She threw her head back and gave a high, girlish laugh. “The Creatures and Beings instructor? The one who’s been with the Chamber for hundreds of years? I think you’re losing it, Kamlyn.”
I sat back in the chair and let my body slump down. No one believed me. How was I supposed to stop Rashne from taking the goblet and unleashing hell on earth by myself? I had have to figure that out later. It had to be done whether I had anyone to help me or not.
“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” I said, distant. “I must be going crazy.”
The Werewolf