“I am sorry if you find this news offensive,” he said. “But, yes, we are family.”
“No,” I said. “We share blood. That doesn’t make us family.
“I understand your animosity, Katherine I do. You feel that I overstepped bounds when I worked with Eric’s parents on our—”
“Breeding program?” I put in.
I had taken a seat beside Eric, across from Father Donnelley, and now he took my hand under the table and squeezed.
“I don’t disagree with you, Katherine.”
“Call me Kate. Only Father Corletti calls me Katherine.”
“But I did have my reasons.” He paused, clearly debating. When he spoke again, there was resignation in his voice, and I knew that, finally, I’d hear the whole story. “The gate that Allie locked. It was conjured.”
I looked at Eric but he only shook his head. I turned and looked the other direction at Eliza. Maybe this was something she’d heard about from her mother or her aunt, my mother. But she shook her head, too.
“Yes, conjured,” Father Donnelly said. “My great grandparents many times removed along with Eric’s. They were all four Demon Hunters withForza. They were working to try and find an alchemical or magical way to bind demons. Instead, they accidentally created portals into various hell dimensions.”
I leaned back in my chair, aghast. Beside me Allie and Eliza both made small gulping noises. “You mean theyopeneda gate,” Eliza said. “One that already existed.”
“No. They did not open one of the gates mentioned in either mythology or the Old Testament. Those are closed, to be opened only with keys that as far as we know do not exist in our world and must be conjured. While a risk, those gates are relatively safe. Their doors have never been flung wide open.”
“They created a new gate,” I said. “Oh, God.”
“Indeed. They created five, and though our ancestors did manage to close these gates, some demons were able to cross over.”
“How did they lock them?” Eric asked.
“They conjured mystical keys. But unlike the truly ancient gate keys, these keys still exist hidden in this world. No one knows where. Even our ancestors didn’t know to where the keys disappeared once the ritual to close the gates was completed.”
“Then how did they know they still existed?” Allie asked.
“I do not know. I know only that they were certain.”
“And they were right. My grandmother found one,” Eliza said. “Remember? And she hid it in the altar so the demons couldn’t get it and open the gate.”
“Exactly. Even with the keys hidden, our ancestors feared that these gates would be opened again in the future. And the conjured gates were much more invasive into our world than the gates into hell that had already existed for millennia.”
“What do you mean?” Eric asked.
“Imagine Jupiter. The rings around it. When a natural gate into the hell dimension is accessed, it goes first to Jupiter’s rings. The conjured gates gate skipped those rings altogether and went straight to the surface of Jupiter.”
“It’s not the greatest analogy, Father,” I said, “but I get it. You’re saying that instead of opening onto your basic hell dimension like the ether all around us, this gate opened to what we’ve been calling Uber-hell. The hell dimension where a demon like Lilith would exist in her true form. A dimension from which it usually takes centuries—or more—for a demon to leave.”
“Exactly.”
“Well, that completely sucks,” Allie said, which I thought nicely summed up the situation.
“I’m sure they thought so as well,” Father Donnelly said. “And according to what has been handed down in the family, they worked and studied and experimented to no avail trying to find a way to not only lock the gate should the keys manifest, but to create a breed of hunter capable of fighting what might come through.”
Allie raised her hand. “Me. They were trying for me.”
He nodded. “They knew that any demon coming from that realm would be stronger, more dangerous and more inclined to destroy humanity rather than mingle within it in the form of a human.”
“And it took generations for them to figure it out.” That from Eliza who was leaning forward intently.
“Yes. A method by which they were confident they could imbue additional strength into a hunter. A strength that would be genetically transferred to that endowed hunter’s progeny.” He nodded from Eric to Allie. “And that progeny, while having strength, would also have the blood that could act as a permanent lock for the conjured gates.”
