The Detective Inspectors (The Doorknob Society Saga Book 4) (23 page)

 “Good thing this bitch isn’t Old Kind then, she’s First Kind.” Nightshade took his Skeleton Key out.

Declan quickly stepped between him and Faith. “I won’t stand by while a prisoner is killed.”

“Get him out of my way, Masters.” Nightshade didn’t flinch.

 I had to admit to myself that I agreed with him. I wanted to see Faith dead, as long as she was alive she was a threat. This is what Gavin had meant when he asked me if I would be able to do what was needed.

“Chloe, I’m asking you not to do this.” Declan raised his hands showing he had no intentions of going for his Silver Star. I think if he had, Nightshade would have taken his shot.

“Yes, Chloe, please save me.” Faith smiled at me and I wanted to punch the smug smile off her face.

 I suppose some rational part of me popped up, which was a startling revelation to me that I could actually
be
rational and I could almost see my dad smiling. “We don’t have time for this now. If our plan succeeds she’ll be as good as dead anyway.” I turned to Nightshade and placed my hand gently on his wrist. He lowered his Key and stepped back.

“Let me lock her away then, put her in some dimension where she won’t be able to escape from.” Nightshade smiled in Faith’s direction and her eyes widened. I could sense the fear that Nightshade had just put in her head.

“It won’t work, not from Storm Reach. The HVO blocks would stop you from opening anything like that,” Declan countered.

“Fine, you’d better hope you’re right,” Nightshade said as he walked away.

 “Yes, Chloe, you had better hope you’re right.” Faith sneered at me.

“You better pray I’m not.” I grinned. “Otherwise you’re going to be wishing I had killed you. Get her out of my sight.”

 Declan stashed Faith and the rest of her team in an adjoining room, shackling them with his HVO abilities, and then we began our way to the tower. Mary took the lead, avoiding guard posts and guiding us through the labyrinth that was Storm Reach. Once at the base of the Tower, we moved up and through the interconnected stairs heading ever upward. Thunder shattered the silence every few moments almost as if warning us not to go any further. I could see why the HVO used this place as a prison, the constant sound and fury from outside was unnerving.

We stopped in a hallway leading into the control room for the cell level. Jess and I took the lead position with Mary beside us. Behind us were Nightshade, Declan, and Slade all ready to attack. The Gremlin sat on its haunches beside them, its long tongue licking its mouth as if it knew we were about to start trouble.

“You’re sure there aren’t any alarms?” I asked Mary one last time.

“I’m sure. One of the first things they did was disconnect the alarm system since they didn’t think we would need it. It’s been deactivated for the entire complex. They felt that two guards were sufficient to protect their boss.”

“We ready?” Jess tightened her grip on her Skeleton Key.

“Remember, we do this fast; we’ve already wasted too much time,” I warned and they all nodded. I took a deep breath and activated my Doorknob.

I rushed into the room spinning my whip around, not giving the one guard time to engage me. The whip cracked across his back and he dropped motionless to the ground.

 Jess’ hand glowed with crimson energy as she brought a right hook around and took out the other guard before he could get out of his chair.

The room was circular with an oblong desk in the middle covered in levers and knobs. The man in charge sat behind it, his glare drilling a hole into me and his mouth in a perpetual frown.

“You,” he sneered and I cracked my whip at my side at the sight of the familiar face.

“Hello, Mr. Jordan.” I circled around the control table as Jordan pushed away from it. He had been the head of the Doorknob Society when I had first learned about them. He’d been responsible for my father being kicked out of DS and had generally made my life hell. I’d gotten him kicked off the Council and removed from DS when I proved he’d been lying and deceiving everyone. I figured he had something to do with the First Kind.

“You ruined my life!” he shouted, his Doorknob sliding into his hand.

“Really now?” I smiled sweetly and he snorted, activating his Doorknob. Declan moved to the panel as we circled one another. He clicked buttons and turned levers working to open the cell doors. Mr. Jordan didn’t seem to care at all. He was entirely focused on me and revenge.

“I’m going to make you pay for what you did to me,” Jordan yelled as he jumped forward, his Doorknob forming into a double bladed axe.

 I side stepped him easily avoiding the blow, and twirled my whip, cracking it inches in front of him. He stumbled back away from it.

“You’re the one who ruined your own life, Jordan.”

“No, you did this to me.” He waved his hand in the air. “I’m stuck in this forsaken place when once I had everything. You and your damn family took it all from me.”

 He moved in again swinging wildly. I flicked my whip easily knocking his feeble strike aside. He had no fighting skills, I could easily take him. But I was giving the others time to open the cells, and since Mr. Jordan felt like talking, I figured this might be a good time to get some information.

“How long were you working for the First Kind, traitor?”

“Traitor? I was attempting to save the Doorknob Society by working with the First Kind. They promised not to destroy us, but your father wouldn’t cooperate and give me the damn Artifact. If he had simply done what I had asked, then none of this would have happened. Now because of you and your family the Old Kind will be destroyed!”

 He attacked like a madman again and I easily averted his senseless strikes as I slowly backed up to get closer to where Declan was working on the lever. It took him only a few minutes more and then he hit the lever. The door leading into the cell block swung open and I stepped through. Jordan, so filled with rage that he paid no attention to his actions, followed after me.

 The long row of cells stretched down the hallway. Every few feet sat a new metal door minus knobs or handles. A set of gears rose out of the floor and attached to the hinges of each door. At the end of the hallway was a massive window that faced out of the Tower. Lightning struck just outside the window illuminating the cell doors and the tiny slots on each. Eyes peered through the narrow openings, watching as Jordan followed me toward the end of the hall.

“You never cared about the Society, Jordan, only your own power.”

“You still don’t get it do you?” He shook his head as if he didn’t believe it himself. “They’ve already won, they are everywhere, they control everything. He has beaten us!” His eyes grew wide and his labored breathing turned to gasps.

 “Who?” I asked anxious to learn the name of the man who was behind the upheaval of the Societies and who had ruined so many lives.

“You still don’t see it do you?” He gave a half-hearted laugh as he lowered his weapon and his shoulders drooped as if he was no longer able to carry the burden.

“Tell me,” I encouraged desperately wanting the name.

 Jordan walked to the massive window at the end of the hall. It stretched from floor to ceiling looking out on the endless dark and storming dimension. He brought up his axe and slammed it into the glass, shattering it. Wind and rain whipped into the corridor pelting Jordan as he looked out into the surrounding darkness.

A ringing sound penetrated the sound of the storm as the gears beside the cell doors began to churn and move. Declan had apparently found out how to open them.

“You can’t win. You must know that.” Jordan’s Doorknob fell from his hand to the floor and rolled forward, disappearing out the window.

“Maybe not, but I can sure as hell try.”

 Jordan glanced at me and his eyes twinkled for a brief moment. “You know you’re going to die here.”

 It was a statement, he had seen the resolve in my eyes and I didn’t see the point in denying it. “If I have to.”

“Maybe he did underestimate you after all.”

“Tell me who the hell
he
is!”

“He has manipulated everything for years and his hate for your cursed family knows no bounds.” Jordan laughed as if at some inside joke. “You have no chance now that he has the Artifacts. Nothing can stop his plan.”

“Artifacts? The First Kind only has one Artifact.” My mind raced I hadn’t even thought about the Artifacts since Edgar had been kidnapped. Had the First Kind been looking for them all this time and more importantly... had they found them? Damn it, how could I have been so stupid not to have considered that they wouldn’t stop looking for them.

“You see your mistake now, don’t you? I told you, it’s over, he’s won.” Jordan stepped to the edge of the broken window. The rain splattered against him and a bolt of lightning struck the darkness behind him.

“It’s not over until I’m dead. Who is he?”

“I no longer want to be his lap dog, I’m finished. If you think you can defeat him by all means try, but your ancestors tried and failed. He is too powerful and he has plans for you.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“You sound like your mother.”

“Don’t ever compare me to that bitch,” I snarled and Jordan choked back a laugh.

“How rich, I almost wish I could see how this ends. But I’m done, this is my last failure. If he knows you got passed me then I am already a dead man. Goodbye, though you’ll be joining me soon.” Jordan smiled and with a quick step out the window disappeared into the dark abyss below.

I wished that he had surrendered the name of the man responsible for this war, but Jordan’s fear of him was so great that he had preferred death. That told me a lot about the man. He didn’t fear death, but then neither did I.

The hiss of air escaping the cells greeted me as I turned and walked past the doors edging open along the rows. Some prisoners wandered out while others sat in their cells looking out in terror of what might be coming for them.

 Declan ran past me into the room to help the disoriented DIs.

“Where’s Jordan?” Slade asked after entering.

“Dead,” I replied.

“You killed him?”

 “No, the coward did that to himself. But I think we have a bigger problem, he told me that the First Kind has more than one Artifact.”

“Crap, that isn’t good,” Jess said, hearing it as she walked in.

Nightshade followed Jess in and leaned against the chest, pointing at me. “We’re going to need a new plan, boss lady.”

 My smart-ass mouth got the better of me, though maybe it was Nightshade that got the better of me. I looked directly at him. “Really? You think so? Wow, thanks for the update.” I turned away from him and looked at the others. “That possibility changes everything. If they possess more than one Artifact, there’s no way we can lock them in this Dimension. The Artifacts will enable them to escape.”

Naturally, Nightshade had to shoot back. “So what you’re saying is that not only do we need to get Edgar and the Mapmakers Legend out. Now we need to find another Artifact and we don’t even know what it is or have the slightest idea where to look for it. Is that about right?”

 Leave it to him to make it sound so bleak. “That about covers it,” I confirmed while trying desperately to think of a way to salvage our current situation. All I had cared about was getting Edgar out and dealing with my mother. But my own single-mindedness had catapulted us into a much more serious situation. Why the hell do I always have to make things worse?

Declan came back into the room flanked by a man on one side and a woman on the other. He joined our group with a sigh.

“These are the two most senior DIs that are left. According to them, the First Kind has been using the Forget Me Nots on groups of DIs every day. We’ve got about thirty of them left in this cell block, but they’ve heard the guards mention another group in a cell block on the other end of the tower.”

“Do you know exactly where that cell block is located?” I asked the woman beside him.

“Yes, I was the head guard for that section.”

“Can you get them out?” I asked.

“If we had our Stars.”

“I know where they are,” Mary chimed in, looking relieved that she was able to help.

“Okay then, new plan. Declan and Mary will take the DIs across to the other cell block and free the other HVO people. I figure it won’t be much longer before the First Kind know we’re here. You guys blast your way the hell out of here. The rest of us are going after Edgar and the Artifacts.”

“Chloe, are you sure about that?” Declan took my hand.

 Nightshade stepped away from us and my eyes lingered on his back for a moment, relieved that he’d still be with me, before turning to Declan. “Yes, this is why we came here. Get back and wait for us, but if we don’t make,”—I hesitated not wanting to think that any of my friends might not make it back—“go to the Mapmakers, they’re the only ones you can trust. They’ll help you.”

 I didn’t know if we would be successful in rescuing Edgar, but if we at least got the HVO out, it wouldn’t be a total loss. The fact that the First Kind had more than one Artifact had me rattled. My plans had been to take care of the First Kind and my mother in one fell swoop. I wasn’t sure that was going to be possible now. But I still had one ace up my sleeve, something that no one else knew about. I just hoped it would work as planned.

“Can I have a moment?” Declan asked and the others stepped away giving us as much privacy as they could.

“You have to get out of here; you still owe me a date.” Declan chuckled.

 I found myself smiling. “I paid up on that deal.”

“You call what we had a date? “He scrunched his brow and shook his head. “We wound up in a fight and caused a major incident that lead to us being chased by the Council.”

 “For me that’s a pretty good date.” Sadly, that was true. I didn’t have the best luck when it came to relationships. My glance instinctively wandered across the room to Nightshade. He was checking the collar on the Gremlin. Declan’s gaze followed mine and he smiled.

“I didn’t have a chance did I?”

 I yanked my attention back to him and stumbled over my words. “Wh-what do you mean?”