Ruins Read Free

along its spine.
    The Sentinel Chronicles – August 1997.
    He’d found the book on his bedside table five days ago, the morning after he’d fought Diltraa. It was the one book in the Sentinels’ extensive records that he’d been unable to uncover. The book’s absence from the library had aroused his suspicions because he was born in that very month. And then suddenly there it was, as if the room had coughed it up, taunting him with the promise of answers.
    Every page was blank. Every single one of them.
    The disappointment thudded in his chest.
    Another dead end.
    Nicholas couldn’t help feeling he was the punchline to a particularly stupid joke. Jessica Bell, the leader of the Sentinels, had revealed something that even now made his skin crawl, as if he’d shrunk inside of it. Almost sixteen years ago, he’d been born in the village of Orville, less than a mile from here. His birth had almost destroyed the village and every single person living in it. They were all killed, their souls frozen in time.
    “ They’re dead ,” Jessica had said, “ but they continue to live undead lives, caught there for all eternity. ”
    Remorse wrenched at his insides and Nicholas glared at the book. There had to be a way to find out how he’d caused such destruction. And there had to be a way to fix it. Jessica had been so busy since the night in the garden, though. That was five days ago, and he’d barely seen her since. They’d burned Diltraa’s remains together; the Garm’s, too. Pounded the bones into ash, and that was the last of it.
    Nicholas suspected that he was still being protected from something. He wished they would just be straight with him. He’d survived a demon – what could be harder than that?
    “Not a fan of the ending?”
    Nicholas jumped. A cat peered at him from the door. Isabel’s fur was black, zigzagged with silver. The fact that she could speak was as unremarkable to him now as the fact that all other cats couldn’t.
    “You’re getting good at being stealthy,” he remarked. “I didn’t hear you at all that time.”
    The cat regarded him coolly. “Or perhaps you were too busy daydreaming, as usual.”
    “I need to find out what happened in Orville,” he said, shoving a hand through his dark, curly hair.
    Isabel couldn’t help. Technically, she’d been dead when he was born, her spirit trapped in the pentagon-shaped room on the ground floor of Hallow House. She was as clueless about the town as he was. She’d taken the time, though, to explain certain things to him. He’d learned words like ‘Harvester’, which were Sentinel-killing bounty hunters, and he’d overheard conversations as Jessica met with visiting Sentinels. A mad man with a katana had rampaged through the streets of Manchester, killing twenty people; a chemical plant had a meltdown, incinerating hundreds of workers; thousands of dead fish washed up at Beach Rock in Norfolk.
    Isabel had uttered the word that nobody else dared.
    “ Apocalypse. ”
    “There’s plenty of time for that later,” Isabel said. “They’re about to start. Come.”
    In a blink she was gone.
    Casting a final look at the book, Nicholas resisted the temptation to give it one last kick and hurried after her, plunging through the empty corridors of Hallow House. When he’d arrived here two weeks ago, the never-ending warren of hallways had given him a headache. Now, he knew the house inside out.
    By the time he arrived at the entrance hall, the cat had vanished. Instead, he found Sam waiting for him.
    “Come on, lad, let’s not miss it, eh?” the elderly man said. Nicholas noticed rings under his eyes and Sam seemed thinner than usual. His grey suit was practically baggy.
    “How are things?” Sam asked as they left the house.
    “Oh, you know. Paying the bills by killing demons. It’s a grind but the kids need new shoes.”
    Sam chuckled. He could always count on a chuckle from Sam, no matter how poor the joke.
    Together, they trudged into