Chapter Nine #5
I reached up to touch my cheek, which was tender from where Cameron had hit me.
I was so used to the sting from the fight ring that the bruise had barely registered.
No one else had mentioned anything, so it couldn’t be too bad, but nothing got past Ava.
The skin beneath my eye had swollen. I supposed there had to be a red welt there. Guess he hit me harder than I thought.
I turned away from her. “It’s nothing. Just a gift from Cameron.”
“Ex-fucking-scuse me?” Ava growled.
I was shocked that she cared, honestly. And it felt good that she did, though I didn’t want to accept her concern. “It’s nothing pidg— Ava. Really. I’m fine.”
“It’s not fine,” Ava said through clenched teeth.
“It really is. He threw me out, so I don’t have to deal with taking his stupid lessons anymore. Taking a blow was a worthy trade to stop going to them.” I really meant that. One little slap was worth not having to listen to my father go on for four hours about fucking forks.
“I’m going to give him a little gift myself,” Ava muttered, and hell, her voice sounded deadly.
“Please don’t get involved. It’s not a big deal.
” The last thing that needed to happen was my ex-wife confronting my estranged father.
I didn’t know what Cameron would do to Ava if she set him off, and if he managed to hurt her in any way, there would be no withholding my wrath after that, because I’d fucking kill him.
We were holding this rebellion together by a thread as it was.
I couldn’t stand it if things got worse.
I struggled to imagine how they could, but this was one way the powder keg could go off.
“But—”
“Let him handle it, sis.” Ez cut in before Ava could go further, which I was grateful for. I didn’t want to talk about my father, especially not with someone who’d hurt me far more than he ever could.
Ava fell silent, but I knew her, and I was certain the gears in her head had to be turning. Oberi was observing her, but I made it clear I didn’t want to know his thoughts about the situation, and he kept silent.
Ez planted himself in the middle of the group, and papers rustled in his hands. “Now that everyone’s here, we can begin.”
Ava rolled up to the nearest table. “What did you find, Ezekiel?”
Ez spread his papers over the table. “I think I’ve found a way to kill him.”
“Kill who?” Marcus asked.
“The muffin man,” Danny replied scathingly. “Who do ye fecking think, Marcus?”
“The Warden,” Ez clarified, and I felt my breath catch in my throat. Everyone leaned in closer as Ez shuffled through his files. He tried to keep his voice steady, but it wavered. “I’ve been researching Celestials, and I’ve found that angels will always die if their wings are severed.”
“We already know this,” Kallie said. “Fat chance of it working on the Warden, considering decapitating him didn’t work. He’s too strong.”
“Yes, but we aren’t implementing that knowledge correctly,” Ez emphasized. “You’ve tried to attack the Warden with brute force to kill him the way other angels can be killed, but as long as he’s got his magic, he’ll be able to heal himself.”
“You’re forgetting how strong he is,” I said.
“He drained the abilities of other demigods to make himself one, then killed the Elves at the Main Facility to increase his magical capacity. His demigod power is immortality and invulnerability, which means even the dark gods can’t kill him.
He’s completely immune to physical harm or the passage of time, which means no matter what we do to him, we can’t kill him. ”
“You think that because you’ve all been going about it all wrong,” Ez insisted.
“You can cut off his head or destroy his heart, and it doesn’t matter, because you aren’t playing to his weaknesses.
But if you take his wings? Then he loses the source of his magic, and he dies.
They’re the source of his demigod abilities, and he can’t regenerate without them. ”
“Hm…” Marcus mused. “Ez might have a point. Nothing else has worked, so we might as well try.”
“That would only work if we could get close enough to him, and after what happened at the Elvish camps, I’m not counting on it,” I reminded them.
“The Warden killed thousands of prisoners instantly in one blast. What we need is to find the final Divinity Key, open the Elven Gate, and restore the connection between the spirit realm and ours. Then we can obtain aid from the gods and bring the Warden down once and for all, because nothing and no one is going to be strong enough to kill him except a god.”
“Funny you should mention that,” Takahashi said as he stepped forward. “Because that’s exactly why I’ve called this meeting.”
“You found something?” Ava asked hopefully.
“Yes,” Takahashi stated. “Elliot Baine and I have been working for months combing through the files you procured from Doctor Taurus’ office before the Institute fire.
We found a document written in ancient Elvish, which Emperor Cassiel was helping to translate.
The translation was only half-finished by the time he passed, but I’ve since been able to translate the rest of it. ”
“You think this document can lead us to the Astromancer key?” I asked.
“Yes,” Takahashi said confidently.
My heart lifted. This was it. This was how I could finally get off my ass and start helping the team again.
“Bring me up to speed,” Danny said. “What do you guys know about the Astromancer key so far?”
Kallie scoffed. “Basically nothing. Our knowledge on the Divinity Keys is limited. All we know is when the Elves left their home realm of Edinmyre, their goddesses portaled them through the Elven Gate to Darke Island. The goddesses made them protectors of the Elven Gate, which has the power to commune with the gods through the use of seven keys. The Elves were the original owners of all the Divinity Keys, but as more supernatural races came to Earth or developed their magic, they split the keys among them to create an alliance between all supernatural races, while the Elves maintained control of the Gate— for a while, at least.”
Kallie went on. “Ava, Marcus, and I arrived at the Institute with the Elementai, witch, and fae keys, which were handed down to us by our ancestors. We found the angel key inside the Warden’s safe in the Infernal Underground, and we obtained the merfolk key within the lake at the Institute.
You know how we got the vampire key in the Devil’s City.
As for the Astromancer key, we haven’t been able to find any clues regarding its whereabouts.
We aren’t even sure if the Astromancers ever received it from the Elves. ”
“According to lost Astromancer mythology, which I’ve recently discovered, the Astromancers received their key and protected it for quite some time,” Takahashi said.
“Then in the 1800s, the Astromancer key’s location became compromised when the fae monarch King Minos began sending assassins to eliminate other supernatural rulers. ”
Marcus rapped his fingernails on the tabletop. “King Minos. We’ve heard that name before.”
“That was Duchess Amalie’s brother,” Kallie said.
“Ama-who?” Danny asked.
“Duchess Amalie was a fae assassin who obtained the merfolk key from Atlantis in 1867 and brought it to Darke Island aboard a ship called The Assassin’s Destiny,” Kallie told Danny.
“Her boat wrecked off the coast of the island, but she portaled it to the nearest inland waters, where her ship and the merfolk key remained submerged for over one-hundred and fifty years until we found it in the lake at the Institute. Most of the crew died in the shipwreck, but Amalie and her crewmate Dante were arrested. He died on Institute grounds, but she was sent back to Malovia where King Minos executed her for treason.”
“That’s correct.” Takahashi rifled through his stack of papers. “But these records indicate that The Assassin’s Destiny did not sail alone. Amalie was accompanied by an entire fleet. One companion ship in particular is named in the records, a ship that translates to The Great Escape.”
“Why would this document be written in Elvish?” Danny wondered. “What do the Elves have to do with this voyage?”
“Amalie sailed to Darke Island before the Elven genocide, and we know The Assassin’s Destiny was an Elvish ship,” Ava recounted.
“When we were researching her story, we learned that she sailed with merfolk and vampires, so the fact that these records exist indicates she was working with Elvish allies as well, who must’ve recorded details about their journey. ”
“Yes,” Takahashi confirmed. “From what I can tell, these records were kept on The Assassin’s Destiny and were salvaged from the debris of Amalie’s shipwreck, which is how the Warden got his hands on them.
He obviously knew these documents were important, though it appears he was never able to obtain a complete translation. ”
“Ha!” Marcus laughed. “It was under his nose the whole time!”
Papers rustled as Ava shuffled through the translation. “What happened to the rest of the fleet? Tell us everything, Professor.”