Page 102 of Demon Apathy: Sunderverse
The air hung thick with our silence. Drevan acted as carefree as usual. A front, it was all a front, the raw emotions that I’d seen on his face last night hidden under an aloof exterior. I forced myself to eat, wishing that the void in my stomach would swallow me whole and take me out of my misery. No such luck.
34
“Areyouready?”Grantasked, walking into his office where I sat waiting for him.
I nodded and rose to my feet. My heart was pumping a thousand miles per hour, but Iwasready. I had thrown out the window whatever concerns I had left about allowing Preston to perform the Truesight spell on me and decided to find out the truth all on my own. I couldn’t live with all these questions anymore, and I was pissed at Drevan for putting a stake on me as if I were an object, all when he couldn’t make good on his claim for whatever reason.
So I was doing this, and I’d asked Grant not to tell Drevan about my decision, told him I wanted to be the one to give Drevan the news.
The director led me to the library, where we found Preston sitting at his usual spot behind the counter. He peered up through his thick glasses.
“Ah, right on time.” He rose to his feet, one hand pressed to his lower back and the other gripping a walking stick. He shuffled out from behind the counter and started shuffling down one of the aisles, massive bookcases on both sides.
I frowned. Did he need a book to remind him of the spell? Not reassuring.
But when Grant followed after him, I started wondering if the procedure would be performed here. Hesitantly, I walked behind the director, matching his steps.
The library windows were kept shuttered to prevent the light from damaging the books, so the aisles were always gloomy, illuminated only by the glow of a few sconces, but never before had they seemed as eerie as they did now.
Hundreds of books seemed to glare at me from the shelves as we passed by. Preston’s walking sticktapped,tapped,tappedagainst the floor, accompanied by the shuffle of his steps. My heartbeat went faster still as the strangeness of the situation wore on my nerves.
When we had traversed what appeared to be the entirety of the library, Preston came to a stop in front of a bare wall. I had never ventured this far—in fact, I always relied on Preston’s magic to retrieve the books I needed—so the area was entirely foreign to me.
The wall was covered in ancient-looking plaster. A threadbare narrow rug lay alongside it, but there was nothing else there that warranted our presence. I glanced up at Grant, hoping he would explain what we were doing in a gloomy, dingy corner of the library. But the director was intent on Preston as the old man tapped his cane on the rug in a combination that sounded like secret Morse code or something like it.
When the librarian was done with his staccato, one end of the rug flipped over, and the entire thing started rolling itself until it lay in a cylinder at the other end. My eyes roved over the floor, searching for a trapdoor that would lead to a secret cellar, but the wooden planks were smooth, showing no signs of any passage.
It wasn’t until Preston performed another little tune with his cane that not a door, but a platform rose up a couple of inches. Wasting no time, Preston stepped on top of it and invited us to do the same. The base was wide enough for five or six people to fit comfortably, so Grant and I had no trouble joining him.
Once we were on top, the platform began lowering itself almost imperceptibly. My mind raced as I tried to comprehend where we could be going. The library was on the third floor so, logically, going down meant we would end up on the second or first floors. Or would we?
When the platform kept moving past what I deemed to be two stories, I decided we were going much lower than that. Underground, that was where. To the bowels of Striker Hall. I’d had no idea there were more than five floors in the old building, but secret passages or entire floors shouldn’t have come as a surprise.
When the platform stopped moving, I found myself staring at a ragged rock wall. Preston stepped off the platform, which was flushed with a polished stone floor, and rounded a corner. Grant and I joined him a second later, and the view that welcomed me froze me on the spot.
A cavernous area the width and height of four football fields stretched before me, its tall ceiling melting into darkness. On the higher levels, balconies with railings hewn from rocks ran along the walls, leading into dark mole holes. On the ground level, staircases were carved into the rocks, and I imagined they led to the higher levels.
Third and fourth years meandered here and there, going about their business, whatever that was. Others sparred with real Quellers, no sight of wooden swords anywhere. The sounds of metal on metal echoed and bounced off the walls. More sounds filtered from the many mole holes, some loud, some slithery and cold. I wondered what secrets they held that might one day be revealed to me.
As I followed the librarian and the director, I gaped at the likeness of horrible demons carved on the walls. They seemed to be leering at me, and they were so lifelike I thought I saw one of them move.
That was when I realized that what stood above ground was nothing but a façade created to fool people. This, down here, was the real League of Demon Hunters.
“How do you keep all of this secret?” I asked, my eyes roving all around, unable to focus on any single detail. There was just so much.
Grand chuckled. “You will see.”
Preston led us through an arched cave and into an ample room that felt like another library. At least that was what I thought until we walked past the many bookshelves and reached the back of the space. The area was about twelve by twelve feet with what looked like a dentist chair bolted to the floor right in the middle, a cabinet at the back, and a simple wooden table with thick legs and a surface polished from use to the side. Many jars and bottles occupied three rows of shelves above the table, their labels describing ingredients that Preston likely used for spells. It was a little like my sister Toni’s potions room at her agency, where she kept what she needed to create mate tracking potions. Things like pixie dust, seven-continent cloud mist, wind-blown mint leaves, and the such.
Magic of this sort had always intrigued me. All of my siblings could brew things. Dani, healing potions. Toni, tracking ones. And Leo… well, he was a mage like Preston, so who knew what all he could concoct.
Sometimes I couldn’t even brew a proper cup of coffee. When I was little, I was jealous of their glimmering concoctions but, as I grew older, I started to realize that I preferred the way my powers worked. They came from within, and they were always there when I needed them. In the beginning, Toni hadn’t been able to track anyone without creating a potion that took two hours to prepare. Lately, she’d undergone some radical changes, and she was able to do more without preparing any mixtures, but that hadn’t come without its share of pain and challenges.
When I finished perusing the shelves, my attention returned to the chair, and that was when I noticed the restraining straps.
I tensed.
Noticing my unease, Preston tried to reassure me. “It’ll be all right. I’ve done this a thousand times. It doesn’t hurt. In most cases. So the restraints are only a precaution.”
