The Demon Hunter by Kevin Emerson Page B

Skrit appeared in red outline.
    Oliver pulled Bane’s necklace from his pocket to be sure …
    The symbols were exactly the same.
    â€œHow is it prepared?” Oliver asked.
    â€œUsing coyote musk and aniseed,” the Codex replied.
    Bane’s cologne.
    â€œThank you,” said Oliver, standing and bowing. He left the Codex chamber and walked back through the stacks, his mind racing. Bane had a hindrian enchantment. When he’d had Selene’s summoning charm, he could have obtained a drop of her life force. But she’d been strong. Sebastian had attacked her with a mystical stiletto and she’d still escaped.
    Maybe she gave it to him willingly. But why? Why would Selene help Bane, and not only that, why did he even need the enchantment? Because he was worried that someone would hear his thoughts. Or that someone might try to get inside his head. That meant Bane had been up to something that he wanted to keep secret. But from whom?
    This all still fit with Oliver’s original suspicion about why Bane had stolen Selene’s summoning charm: that he was jealous, that he wanted to be the chosen vampire, and maybe even that he was trying to find a way to get Oliver’s prophecy for his own. He could have used the enchantment to keep his plans secret. But it didn’t make sense that Selene would help him with that.
    Oliver felt another wave of frustration. If Bane had found a way to transfer the prophecy to himself, he could have just asked, for all Oliver cared. Really, he would have been happy to give Bane the prophecy and be done with it. Except then Bane would go through with it, and my friends would be destroyed. That was why Oliver had to keep it and find a way to undo it himself. But how? The Codex had no information on that. Maybe Désirée would.
    He arrived at chamber ninety-three and entered. He sat and said: “Nagual demon.”
    Pink eyes lit and the Codex rolled forward. It took a rattling breath. “Nagual are vampires who have been consumed by their animal nahualli. Nagual were first documented during the Aztec and Mayan empires. Some vampire shamans experimented with feeding datura root to their nahualli animal, which was thought to create a deeper bond between the vampire and the animal’s spirit. But the balance was hard to get right, and the animal spirit was seductive in its primitive simplicity.
    â€œSometimes a vampire would go too far, and lose itself within the animal. The vampire’s physical body would be permanently lost. This new creature was called a Nagual—part vampyr demon, part animal spirit—and could leap from one animal to the next.
    â€œIn recent centuries,” the Codex continued, “Nagual have been trapped and sold on the black market. While vicious, they can be controlled by certain totems and made to obey commands. Nagual are especially useful for lethal tasks, as they are cunning and powerful.”
    Oliver could barely absorb what he was hearing. His brain felt too full, but then his thoughts began to organize and suddenly fell into place. A Nagual could be bought and controlled. Tyrus had referred to Malcolm’s Nagual. Half-Light had bought the Nagual, they knew it was inside the jaguar, and—
    Maybe they knew it was Bane, and they were trying to get him into trouble. Oliver didn’t want to believe it, but it made perfect sense. If Bane was trying to somehow steal the prophecy, who else to protect Oliver other than Half-Light? They would have been watching Bane since Morosia, trying to figure out what he was up to. But Bane had the necklace, which kept his thoughts safe. Once it was lost, though, Half-Light could learn what he was up to. And whatever it was, it must have been bad enough that Half-Light felt they needed to trap him in the jaguar and frame him for the murders.
    That would give them an excuse to … what? Punish him, Oliver guessed, maybe even lock him away somewhere.
    It’s