The Mapmakers Union (The Doorknob Society Saga Book 3) (32 page)

“Are you okay?” Slade asked with concern.

“No, not at all.” I shook my head and the tears tore loose streaming down my cheeks.

Slade reached out wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against him. I closed my eyes and relaxed, letting him hold me. I needed this right now, someone to hold me and remind me that I was still alive, even though I felt totally numb. “It’s going to be okay,” he said quietly.

“I hope that’s true.”

The roar of an engine echoed down the street as a car pulled up in front of the house. I craned my neck from under Slade’s arm and saw the old fashioned blue car with flames painted across its hood and recognized it immediately.

Nightshade was here.

The door opened and he stepped out. He was in jeans and a black t-shirt that hugged his body. He looked as if he hadn’t shaved in a few days, the scruff a fine shadow along his jawline. He walked toward the porch and Slade released me.

“You want me to stay?” Slade asked.

“We need a moment.”

“I’ll be inside if you need me,” Slade offered and walked inside.

I hadn’t seen Nightshade since the day Dad died. Jess had tried to visit him and talk with him, but she had no luck and no one else had been able to reach him. Some people even questioned if he had returned to the First Kind.

“Hi,” I said nervously as I wiped away the last of the tears from my face, “you came.”

“Yeah, sorry, I know everyone’s been looking for me, but I had some stuff to deal with.” He slid his hand through his hair and over the back of his neck.

“Are you okay?”

“Not really. “I saw a fixer and even though I broke the First Kind’s hold on me, the Forget Me Not they used remains whole and active and makes it that much harder to keep things straight.”

I was afraid of the answer but I had to know. “So you don’t remember everything?”

“No, my memories are all confused, nothing seems real to me right now. I barely remember the fight in the Mapmakers dimension. That’s why I needed to keep my distance from everyone for a bit and try to sort things out.”

“Did it help?”

“I know I’m not a First Kind, if that’s what you mean.”

“It’s not.” I stepped toward him and his eyes roamed over me. “I meant do you remember me?”

“Yeah, Masters, I remember you.”

“You do?”

“Yes, you’re the annoying DS member who drives me nuts and is dating the Boy Scout who just went inside.”

My stomach sank and I lowered my head choking out the words. “Yup, that’s me.”  I wanted him so badly to grab me, kiss me, hold me tight, and tell me that everything was going to be okay. If he told me, I’d believe it.

“Look, I don’t know what good I’ll be to you like this, so I’m going to take a break and go away for a while. But when you’re ready to find Edgar, I’ll be there to help you.”

My eyes welled again and I kept my head down so that he wouldn’t see. “Where will you go?”

“I don’t know, but I need to go.”

“Okay.” I nodded and he walked off the porch. I quickly wiped the tears from my eyes and finally looked up. He stopped half way to his car and turned back to me.

“Masters?”

“Yeah, Nightshade?”

“Everything’s going to be okay.” He smiled and turned away and tears rolled down my face once again.

Status: What now?

I sat swinging in the porch swing. I was enjoying the silence the guests had finally left behind. Family and some close friends still lingered inside, but I wanted to be by myself.

The swing creaked as I pushed myself back and forth. I stretched my neck back and looked at the night stars and listened to the roar of the ocean a couple of blocks away, the sight and sound of both reminding me of memories I sooner not think of right now.

“Mind if I join you?” Val walked onto the porch a bag slung over her shoulder.

“Anytime.” I patted the seat next to me and she dropped her bag and sat beside me. “What’s with the bag?”

“My mom kicked me out.” She laughed and I slid my arm around her shoulder.

“Sorry.”

“I don’t care; I am leaving for college in two months anyway. All that really matters to me is finding Edgar.”

I gave her a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll find him, I promise.”

She smiled, though it was brief. “I know you will, I just worry that he’s okay.”

“They won’t hurt him, they need him too much.” I hoped more then anything that was true, but then it would depend on how cooperative Edgar would choose to be.

“I didn’t think this was how graduation and the summer would go. I thought we would all graduate and enjoy ourselves before we left for college. This is such a disaster; your dad, Edgar, and Nightshade.”

“He stopped by.”

“He did, how was he?”

“He doesn’t remember anything about us,” I sighed and shook my head not wanting to upset myself again.

“I’m sorry, Chloe.”

“Nothing to be sorry about, it’s not your fault. There is only one person to blame for this.”

“Everything okay out here?” Jess asked stepping outside, Slade followed, the door swinging closed behind them.

“Yup,” Val said, leaving it up to me to tell them what we’d been discussing, if I wanted to. She was a trusted friend. 

“We needed to get out of there. Gran and the others are telling stories about how things were back in the day.” Jess rolled her eyes and squeezed into the swing beside me, while Slade leaned against the porch railing.

“Did my grandparents say if Uncle Archie was coming?” My dad’s brother had missed the funeral and I was hoping to see him.

“No, he’s on some mission for DS,” Jess said. “He called though and wanted to talk with you but you were out here with Nightshade, so I told him to call back. Why what’s up?”

“I made my choice for mentor that is after we find Edgar. I’m going to London to apprentice to Uncle Archie.”

“That’s great. The two of us in Europe, it’ll be a blast!” Jess slapped my knee and a smiled crept loose.

“Sounds like fun. What about Nightshade?” Slade asked looking directly at me.

“He’s taking some time to be on his own. He doesn’t remember much and barely remembers me at all.”

“Oh, sweetie.” Jess rubbed my leg.

“One more thing to add to the growing list of what the First Kind has done to us.”

“What’s the plan?” Slade asked.

“The plan is simple. My mother killed my dad, kidnapped my friend, and took away the man I love. I’m going to kill the bitch.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Enjoy an excerpt from the fourth book in the Doorknob Society saga...

Chapter 1

Status: Russian Nights

My phone buzzed drifting along the nightstand as I reached out searching for it. I slapped my hand around trying my best to find it without opening my eyes. Finally, I peeled one eye open and saw the phone about to fall and reached out and grabbed it.

I turned over in bed and tapped the screen. I missed the call but had a text message and scrolled to it.

Got a lead on Edgar.

I threw the covers aside and hopped out of bed, searching in the dark for my clothes I tossed off last night. Jess and I had gone to the Bronze Compass to blow off some steam and stayed out way too late. I found my skirt and pulled it on. Luckily, I had left on my pants when I crawled into bed. I pulled my hoodie on and found my boots slipping them. I hooked my satchel over my shoulder and activated my Doorknob and opened a portal in the wall beside my bed.

I figured there was no point in waking the family; there wasn’t anything they could do anyway. Since Dad died not only was Gran living here but my other Grandparents and Jess was stopping by nightly to check on me. Not to mention Uncle Archie was calling me nonstop from London to prepare me for my apprenticeship.

I stepped through and shivered, ever since Gavin had left the Diesel Factories he was hiding in the oddest places and this was one of my least favorite. The cold wind blew down the alleyway and I stepped out onto the streets of Moscow. Going from the summer breezes of Cape May to here was no fun.

I walked down the street and pushed aside the corrugated metal that served as a barrier and walked into another corridor. The walls were filled with graffiti but I didn’t know Russian so I had no idea what nasty things were written on the walls but the pictures gave me the idea it wasn’t very nice.

The metal door at the end of the hall was dingy and looked like it hadn’t been opened in years. I knocked as hard as I could and the sound echoed through the shallow corridor.

A small plate slid across and a set of eyes peered down at me. “What’s the password?”

“Shut up and open the door.”

“That not password,” he responded in broken English and I wanted to put my leg right through the door and kick him.

“Ivan, open the door before I open it!”

“You not very good at secret stuff.”

“And you’re a crappy guard, now open the damn door.” The metal door creaked and scratched as he twisted the lever and pulled it open. Ivan was standing in front of me his belly hanging out and his hair unkempt. He was my height and looked like he belonged in rehab rather than working as a guard.

“Where is he?”

“In back like always.” He hiked his thumb over his shoulder and began to push the door closed. He grumbled and I wondered for the hundredth time why Gavin thought this man was a good choice for a guard. I mounted the stairs swiftly, the metal squeaking under my boots. I was still trying to get the sleep out of my eyes when I pushed the door open. My mouth hung open at what I saw before me.

Gavin floated suspended in mid-air. His head back and long hair flying around him as symbols and calculations floated around the room like a child’s diorama. The room was oddly quiet except for a slight murmur escaping his lips. I stepped in and watched the floating equations transform and zoom from one side of the room to the other, slamming into one another and coalescing into new formulas. Sections of space time would appear and disappear in the blink of an eye. Beside me a set of numbers raced through an equation. I reached out and with my finger touched just along the edge of the symbols.

A shock went through my arm and up my neck. My head flipped backwards and the universe was inside my mind. The spin of the Earth and the rotation of the Sun, how they floated through the dimensions, were all laid bare to me. I could see the lines of how everything was connected and it all made sense. This is why Edgar was always scribbling things down because this was how he saw the world around him.

Edgar, just the thought of him made everything shift. The Universe turned and I was racing through the dimensions following a line of golden light. Each new dimension fell away as I passed through it with ease and then the line suddenly ended. I could sense it entering another dimension but for some reason it was blocked to me. I moved up and down around the walls of the dimension trying to access it but found nothing.

“There is no way in.” I blinked and my head snapped forward. Gavin Brimstone was standing in front of me and the room was normal once again. Gavin looked like he hadn’t slept in days. A scruffy beard attested to that as did his rumpled clothes and his hair that was longer than usual.

“What was that?”

“Your first experience accessing Mapmaker abilities.” He scratched his head, then pushed through the door and walked down the stairs. I followed after him as quick as I could.

“I gathered that, the line of energy was Edgar?”

“Yes, very good. That’s why I called you. I have been using coordinates that Jeremiah was able to hobble together from the attack on the Mapmakers Union Hall. Plus I was able to pull a few from the Forget Me Not that you got from Faith. I’ve been tracking him for days.”

We’d been looking for Edgar since the moment the First Kind kidnapped him to help them use the Legend of the Mapmakers Union. It’d been weeks and we’d found nothing until now.

“What is that place? Why is it locked like that?”

“I’m honestly not sure. I’ve been trying to access it since I first found it but I haven’t had any luck. At first I assumed it was a Skeleton Key Guild lock. But it isn’t, it’s something else entirely.”

“What do we do?”

“I keep looking until I find a way in or a clue as to what it is.”

“I can help.”

“You’re not experienced enough yet with your Polymorph abilities, you need to keep practicing. Plus isn’t your apprenticeship beginning soon?” He raised an eyebrow as he pulled a beer from the fridge and snapped the top off.

“Yup, I’m supposed to be London tomorrow to meet Uncle Archie.” I wanted to learn more about being a DS member, but there was so much more going on that lately I had been questioning if I really I had the time for it.

“Learn everything you can from him, you’ll need it for the coming battle.”

“Everyone keeps telling me that.” I’d graduated from the Paladin Academy a few weeks ago and since then all my relatives and everyone and anyone kept telling me I had to learn what I could and prepare. “I think I liked it better when the truces were called off. Now with everyone working together, it seems as if everyone expects me to help them.”

“I heard the Council made it official that you’ve been selected to find Edgar, that’s a rare honor for an apprentice to receive.” Gavin sat down while Ivan grabbed the remote and turned on the TV and started flipping through the channels.

“Yes, Dante was very happy to bring me before the Council and show me off. The poor Masters girl who lost her dad, to her mom the traitor, a sappy movie is what I am.” I dropped on the couch beside him and he draped his arm over my shoulders.

“The hard truth is that people are always going to try to use you, Chloe. You’re a Polymorph we’re the most sought after of the Old Kind and you’re well known. The thing to remember is that the more they use you the more power it gives you over the situation, never forget that,” Ivan was skimming the channels when he hit one playing an old black and white movie. “Stop, that’s Bride of Frankenstein. I love that movie.”

Gavin leaned back on the couch and I rested against him. With Dad gone I’d been spending more time with Gavin and training as much as I could. I followed him all over the dimension and globe, using my training as an excuse to escape my friends and family.