The Mapmakers Union (The Doorknob Society Saga Book 3) (22 page)

 “Is everything alright?” he asked concerned.

“I’m not sure. How did you know he was controlling people against their will?”

“The HVO has a device we use.” He reached into his jacket and lifted out a silver handled mirror, but not just any mirror, the exact same mirror inside my bag.

“Oh no.”

Status: This is not good.

“What?” he asked as I pulled my own bag open and lifted out the exact same mirror. “How is that...”

He never got to finish. The hairs on my neck stood on end as energy built up around us. I glanced around half expecting an attack but no one was nearby and neither of us had activated our abilities.

The mirrors hummed in our hands, vibrating and generating their own power. A line of electricity arced from my mirror and slammed into Ichibod’s. He was jolted backward but remained standing.

“What are you doing?” he yelled over the crackle of electricity.

“It’s not me!”

The room rumbled as lines of electricity shot in all directions. I wanted to let go of the mirror but couldn’t. It had a hold on me and all I could do was wait for it to release me. I just hoped I wouldn’t be a smoking carcass at that point.

The energy grew around us like a bubble moving outward until finally the room was drenched in it. Then—BOOM—it was as if someone popped the bubble. It exploded sending me flipping backwards and slamming into a stack of books. They rained down on me like a thunderstorm and I raised my arm up trying to stop the onslaught. The last book fell and I looked down to see my hands shaking and the mirror lying on the ground glowing.

“Are you alright?” Ichibod shouted from the opposite direction.

“Yeah, just barely.”  I pushed the fallen books away and stood up stretching my back, which felt as if someone had stomped on it “You okay?”

“A bit sore.” He walked up to me rubbing his side and holding his own mirror, which was glowing as well.

“What the hell was that?” I asked leaning down and lifting the mirror. Energy still buzzed around it, but no electricity was shooting out of it. I considered that a good thing.

“I don’t know. Where did you get that?” he pointed to the mirror.

“A fixer gave it to me. I was having headaches and I went to see her. She used it to find the problem.”

“Someone used a Forget Me Not on you, didn’t they?” His eyes searched around my face, as if he might be able to see the invisible halo that the Forget Me Not leaves behind.

“Yes,” I sighed, thinking about Gavin. “Someone betrayed me.”

“Darkwatch,” he seethed.

“No, they call themselves the First Kind.”

“If they are using the Forget Me Not and controlling people in secret, it is Darkwatch. I’ve been looking into them and they’ve been around a lot longer than I thought. They may call themselves First Kind in your time and they very well may be around since the time of the true First Kind. But trust me, they are connected to Darkwatch.”

“It does seem awfully coincidental.”

“Who controls them, do you know?”

“No.” I thought of what I’d just learned... that someone other than my mother was in charge of the First Kind. “Whoever it is he or she uses other people to do his/her dirty work.”

“Ian Gatekeeper is the leader in my time; do you know if I defeat him?” His eyes searched my face hoping for good news.

I hated to disappoint him. “I’m sorry; I’m not sure.”

“Damn.” He kicked at the books lying on the ground. I looked down and had to do a double take when I saw what lay on the ground in front of me. I leaned down, my hands gently sliding over the book before lifting it.

Legends of the Mapmakers Union.

“We found it,” I said unable to keep the astonishment out of my voice.

“The book you need?”

“Yes.” I pressed it to my chest hugging it. Finally something was going right. “Thank you for helping me.”

“It is the least I could do for family.” He smiled and I wished I could help him as much as he had just helped me.

“You should have taken the deal!”

My stomach sunk at the sound of Ms. True’s voice. I looked down to the end of the branch bookcases and there she stood. Her hair was swept tightly back giving her beauty a harsh unearthly tone.

“I told you, I don’t do deals,” I yelled back as I slid the book into my bag and slung the shoulder strap over my head and across my body. I then sunk my hand into my pocket, my fingers wrapping around my doorknob.

“Finally, I get to kill you and I am so going to enjoy it,” Ms. True said.

“Madam, your manners are appalling,” Ichibod said his doorknob in his hand and glowing bright blue.

True snickered. “I see you found yourself a new boyfriend already.”

My blood boiled at her snide remark and I pulled my own doorknob out activating my energy whip.

“No, madam, I’m family,” Ichibod said as his own doorknob turned into a whip similar to mine. He swung it in a wide arc and crashed it into the floor in front of True, forcing her to jump backward. “And we look out for each other.”

“Take them,” True yelled.

 I turned my head and caught Jasper, Faith’s ex-boyfriend and traitor coming for me to my right and to my left, two men approached.

“Any ideas?” Ichibod asked having taken in our predicament.

“You’re surrounded, Masters, give up.”

The voice made my skin crawl even more than Ms. True’s. I glanced over my shoulder to see Caleb Darker walking toward me with a man wearing a hoodie that concealed his face following behind him. Darker—the man who killed Nightshade—how I hated him. It took all my willpower not to attack him right then.

“Sorry, I got you into this, Ichibod.” I’d really screwed up this time, not only was I going to die, but my ancestor might as well. Hell, did that mean if he died I would never be born? When I screw up I do a bang up job.

“My mom calls me Ichibod,” He laughed as he spun his whip keeping Jasper at bay. “My friends all call me Bodie.”

My breath caught in my throat at his nickname. ‘
Tell Bodie I said hi
.’ That’s what Rosalita had said to me before I left her office, except I hadn’t known a Bodie, not until now. What the hell? What else had she said to me? I wracked my brain as the First Kind moved slowly toward us.

Remember, go left.

I didn’t wait, I grabbed Bodie’s arm and yanked him left just as the two guys descended on us. They stumbled missing us. Bodie and I reacted as one, flicking out our wrists and snapping our whips into them and knocking them into the bookshelves. With a quick jump, we leapt over them and raced along the shelves. The sound of Darker screaming in frustration followed quickly behind us as we reached an intersection and turned racing in another direction.

“This way,” Bodie yelled and turned taking us out of the bookshelves and back into the Tavern.

“You’d think someone would stop a full-fledged fight in this place,” I said amazed that no one seemed to care about the mayhem around them as we ran past.

“Fights are common here. Most people don’t want to get involved, better off that way.”

“Now where?” I scanned the section we were in. I caught a glimpse of the area where I was due to meet my team. With so many people in the way I didn’t have a clear view so I couldn’t see if they were there waiting.

“I have to go this way.” Bodie pointed in the opposite direction.

I wanted to go with him, but I needed to get back to my people and my time. “I’m this way.” I jerked my thumb backwards and gave a half smile. “Good luck, Bodie.”

He grabbed me and pulled me into a hug. It reminded me of the way my dad would always hug me and I wrapped my arms around him and squeezed tight.

“You do our name proud,” he whispered, and then let me go and ran off to his own rendezvous.

I didn’t have time to be sentimental; I spun and started weaving in and out of the mass of people between me and my team. If I could make it to them we would have a fighting chance even if the First Kind found us.

I found a break in the crowd and raced through it. I arched my neck and could see the team standing where we were due to meet. Faith was pacing back and forth and Edgar was standing with his head hanging down, Jackson right behind him. Hitch and Mary were standing off to the side talking.

“Hey!” I yelled running forward. Edgar’s head shot up; his face was beet red. Faith turned toward me and smiled wide. Then in a split second everything changed.

“Chloe, it’s a trap run!” Edgar screamed louder than I had ever heard him. He whipped his satchel around hitting Jackson in the face with it and started to run toward me. Jackson recovered quickly and his doorknob snapped out a blast of energy slamming into Edgar’s back and dropped him to the floor.

“No,” I screamed and ran for Edgar.

Status: Betrayed.

“
Edgar
.” I brought my whip around furiously attacking Jackson. He quickly raised a shield and I shattered it with one blow. I swung my whip again and cut his feet out from under him.

“
Stop.
” Faith’s voice cut through my anger, freezing me in place. I stood immobile beside a knocked out Jackson with Edgar a few feet away, the back of his jacket charred from the blast he took. I couldn’t move. I urged ever muscle in my body to do something—anything—but not one muscle even twitched.

“What did you do?” I spoke through gritted teeth.

“Nothing that I haven’t done before.” Faith walked into my field of vision smiling.

“You.” My head exploded in a mixture of pain and visions and I caught a glimpse of an alleyway, then I saw Faith and Jasper kissing and I was running toward them when Faith raised her hand and I saw what she held.

“Yes, it was me, your little sidekick who you didn’t think twice about.” She laughed and lifted her hand and the small globe that Gavin had given me before we tried to rescue Val a few months ago rolled around in her palm.

“Gavin’s Forget Me Not.” It hadn’t been Gavin, he had never betrayed me. It had been Faith all along. Thinking back on it, I should have known it was her. The constant headaches around her should have been a good indication and whenever we were in close proximity of the Legend, I had felt the control of the Forget Me Not loosening.

“It did come in handy. I’d been chosen to get close to you. You seeing Jasper and I kissing would have ruined all that, but this little thing took care of that and has helped me keep you in line ever since.” She chuckled and walked over to Edgar. She pulled his satchel off him and gave him a swift kick in the side. He moaned and I let out a sigh of relief, at least he was alive “I needed to get this from you. When we stole the Legend from the Mapmakers I tried for it then, but you got away with it. I don’t know where you’ve been hiding it but I knew you would bring it out to use eventually.”

“You’re a traitor.”

“Oh please, the Doorknob Society is pathetic, even you know that or you wouldn’t keep all the secrets from them that you do. We’re just choosing the winning side.”

“Don’t do this, Faith.”

“You think you can appeal to our friendship? Here’s a clue, Chloe, I was never your friend. But when I get done with you,” —she lifted the Forget Me Not to my face— “I’ll be the only friend you have, then you’ll tell me where you’ve been hiding this and where the Impossible Engineers artifact is as well.”

“Wrong, bitch, I won’t tell you anything,” I laughed in her face. She actually thought I was pleading. Damn, but she really didn’t know me. “You think we had a friendship? Even with that thing controlling me, you couldn’t get close enough to get what you needed. You’re pathetic and before this is over, I’m going to kick your sorry ass.”

“I don’t think so,” she said with a laugh that didn’t sound so confident. She waved at Mary and Hitch to help Jackson up.

“What are you doing?” Ms. True’s voice floated in from behind me and I could hear the sounds of her hurried footfalls as she approached.

“Finishing the mission, Ms. True.” Faith’s smile faded and she pulled the Forget Me Not away from me.

“How? By telling her everything?  If you taunt her, foolish girl, it will make it that much harder for her mind to accept you.” True came to stand beside Faith and smiled at me. “Not so cocky now are you?”

“This isn’t over yet,” I threatened with confidence born of anger.

“Yes, it is,” True snapped, “and you’ve lost. We’ll use the Forget Me Not and you’ll lead your best friend here to the other artifact.”

My hands began to shake as I fought against the power of the Forget Me Not. I reached deep inside myself, calling on my abilities, trying to activate them. But I felt only the smallest of sparks. I wouldn’t let them do this to me again, damn it I wouldn’t.

“What about him?” Faith waved toward Edgar.

“Take him, we need him, and let her believe that he died fighting us. Hurry up, Caleb and his lapdog will be here soon and I don’t want him and her around one another, understood?” True smiled at me and I wanted so badly to slap it off her face.

“No problem.” Faith stepped forward and lifted the Forget Me Not in front of my face once again. “I think this time I’ll make you believe that I did my best to save Edgar, but it was you who got him killed.”

Pain started creeping into my head as the Forget Me Not activated. I closed my eyes and willed my own abilities to activate. I tried to remember everything Gavin had taught me about using my Polymorph powers, and I called out to each one of them, begging them to unlock and allow me to escape. The spark I had felt earlier grew slightly, though not enough to help. My memories began to swirl and it wouldn’t be long before she wiped away everything I had just learned. I dug in thinking of Edgar and how if I couldn’t succeed and break the hold the device had on me then he wouldn’t survive... just like Nightshade.

Nightshade popped into my head, smiling that crooked grin of his and his beautiful eyes stared straight through me. I held strong and hard to that image and the power of the Forget Me Not didn’t seem as powerful. I clung to my memories and remembered everything that had happened.

“What’s going on?” Ms. True asked.

“She’s fighting it,” Faith replied.