The Mapmakers Union (The Doorknob Society Saga Book 3) (2 page)

“Don’t bother my dad with it. He has enough going on with all the truces falling apart, plus I volunteered.” It was partially true, my dad was going crazy trying to keep the Orders from fighting amongst themselves, but I also didn’t want him knowing what I was up to.

“You have to stop doing this.” Jess bit her lip.

“What are you talking about?”

“Ever since James died you’ve been taking more and more risks. It’s like you’re purposely trying to get hurt.” Jess was succinct, which had me thinking that she had rehearsed this conversation before confronting me.

Maybe she had a point and maybe she didn’t. I didn’t know and at the moment I didn’t care. There was work to be done and I was going to do it. “I’m fine, Cuz, don’t worry about it.”

“I’m not the only one who thinks it,” she blurted out. “Everyone else agrees.”

“Do they now?” I sighed realizing she was never going to let this go, she was going to force me to talk about it.

“Yes, we all talked about it and we’re worried about you. You keep taking crazy risks. We care about you, Chloe, and don’t want to see you self-destruct. We all cared about James and we all miss him.”

I had to bite my tongue. I had never admitted to any of my friends how I really felt about Nightshade. None of them knew I loved him or what had passed between us before he saved me and died in my place. How did I explain it anyway? How do you explain discovering love at the same moment you lose it? How do you explain that you shared a first and last kiss at the same time?

My voice was husky with sorrow. “You weren’t there.”

“Chloe, we know how difficult it was.” She reached out placing a comforting hand gently on my wrist.

  I couldn’t stand any sympathy at the moment. I pulled away and stood. “No, you have no idea what it’s like to see your friend face down death in your place. I couldn’t do a thing to help him. I watched him die. You don’t know what that was like and I hope you never do.”

“Chloe.”

 I didn’t wait to hear what she had to say, I stormed out of the room and up the stairs to mine and threw myself on the bed. Why did she have to bring up James? I had been doing so well not thinking about him. I fought back tears and rolled onto my back trying desperately to stop the memories from creeping up on me. I turned my head to find Nightshade staring back at me. It was a picture of me and him from the night of the school dance. I reached over and grabbed it. There he was staring at me with love, not that I saw it then, though I see it clearly now. I had fooled myself the whole time we knew each other; always pushing him away, always being annoyed at him for one thing or another and yet always turning to him for help, and him always being there for me. In the end he had been there again for me. He hadn’t hesitated in giving his life so that I could live. He had truly loved me and like a fool I hadn’t realized how much I loved him until it was too late.

A single tear rolled down my cheek and I wiped it away as I cradled myself in my bed and stared at our picture. My phone buzzed in my ear and I clicked it without thinking.

“How did it go?” Gavin asked.

“Not good. I think we lost an informant.” I placed the picture on the night stand in a useless attempt to ignore it.

“You’re right that’s not good. Any news on the other mission?”

“I have a meeting tomorrow and think we might have a lead.” I closed my eyes pushing away the stark image of James Nightshade.

“Perfect. Keep me in the loop.”

“You got it boss.” I tapped my earpiece hanging up the call and stretched out on my bed. Tomorrow I had a meeting at the Reliquary and hoped to have new information. Little did my friends know I had a whole other life they knew nothing about and I intended to keep it that way.

Status: A book, a boyfriend, and problems galore.

I stepped out into the Reliquary, this old musty place having become my second home the last few months. It was a great place to hide things, not to mention keep secrets, which I was full of lately.

Dad, Mr. Miller of the Impossible Engineers, and DI Emory of the HVO had been giving my friends and me assignments without the knowledge of the Societies. Not that I cared for the Old Kind all that much, they were only slightly better than the First Kind in my opinion.

I had yet to tell anyone that I was a Polymorph, which is a fancy way of saying that my abilities aren’t limited to those of the Doorknob Society. I can also do feats of Impossible Engineering and I’m working with my mentor on much more than that.

“Hey, Chloe.” Edgar came over by me, his goggles shoved up into his black hair that was forever disheveled.

“Hi Edgar, thanks for the help last night.” I smiled and patted his shoulder.

“Jess told me my plan worked, that’s great. I figured we might be able to dump him in the ocean and confuse his tracking by having another person portal you out.” He grinned from ear to ear.

“It worked perfectly.”

“Great, Jess also mentioned that she tried to talk with you.” He titled his head and gave me an Edgar look, meaning it was difficult to get annoyed at him.

“Not you too,” I sighed.

“Sorry, Val would kill me if I didn’t try.” He shrugged and I knew he wasn’t kidding. Val was many things but forgiving was not one of them.

“I’ll let her know you tried talking to me.” I laughed and punched his shoulder in understanding.

“Thanks.” Edgar smiled and walked to one of the many tables and plopped down and started going over his maps. My stomach churned as more portals opened and Jess entered the room along with Mr. Miller and behind him Slade.

I scowled at Slade and walked out of the room. He and I hadn’t spoken for months. I couldn’t bring myself to speak with him after he had shown more concern for the artifact than for me. I stood in the hallway and looked out of one of the many windows and shook my head. Who knew what dimension the structure was currently residing in? The building shifted itself every few hours so that only people who knew its signature could find it.

“Chloe?” Slade’s voice broke my concentration and I turned to face him. For once he wasn’t using his puppy dog eyes on me which actually made me happy.

“What do you want?” I sneered.

“I just want to talk.” He stepped toward me and I backed up. He closed his eyes and sighed and took a step backward.

“Well, then talk.”

“I’m sorry.” He opened his eyes and looked directly at me.

“Okay fine.” I wasn’t giving him anything. I had no sympathy for him; I was angry and hurt.

“Chloe, I screwed up, I know that. I was stupid.” His voice cracked as he spoke and I knew he was really trying, but I still didn’t intend to give an inch.

“You left me; you walked away and didn’t even think twice about it. But Nightshade did.” I seethed.

“I know and it’s my fault it was Nightshade who died and not me, I understand that now.” He lowered his head and let out a deep breath.

“What do you want Slade?”

“I want you to know I understand. Nightshade and I didn’t see eye to eye but he did what I couldn’t, and I will always be grateful to him for that. I know you want nothing to do with me right now and I get it. I let you down. I’m going to try and prove to you I’m worth your time again.” He waited with a hopeful look in his eyes.

“Whatever.” I shrugged not willing to forgive him so easily.

“I’m serious, Chloe, I’ll do whatever it takes.” He stepped forward and reached out to take my hand.

There was a time I would have welcomed Slade’s touch, but not now. All I could think about was Nightshade and how I felt when he kissed me. I didn’t think that I would ever know such a loving kiss like that again.

A small twinge of guilt pricked at me for not having told Slade about it.  The guilt dissipated fast enough. The memory was for me alone to keep.  The only person I had shared it with was my grandmother and I was pretty sure she was going to keep my secret.

“Okay, Slade.” I patted his hand and moved away from him.

“Okay then.” He gave a slight nod and grin as if he wasn’t quite sure if we were okay and reluctantly walked away, leaving me to my thoughts.

I took a deep breath and turned to once again look out the window. How the hell had my life become so complicated? I didn’t want to hurt Slade but I was still so angry with him for deserting me when I needed him. And I couldn’t deny that Nightshade’s ghost hovered around me always near yet so far out of reach.

 I walked back into the antechamber and found Mr. Miller sitting at the table with my friends sitting across from him. I slid into the chair beside Jess.

“Thank you all for coming. As you know due to your success in dealing with the First Kind, they failed to obtain the Impossible Engineer artifact. However, they did succeed in acquiring the Legends of the Mapmakers Union book, which is a guide on how to use the artifact of the Mapmakers. We’ve learned from our contacts in the Mapmakers that someone has been trying to access the artifact. We need to get that book back or find a copy of our own.” Mr. Miller leaned back in his seat and waved his hands opening the floor to questions.

“Do we have any other leads?” Edgar twisted his hands together excited by the prospect of working on anything that involved the Mapmakers Union.

“The last copies of the book were thought to have been destroyed during the Darkwatch episode over a hundred years ago. You all came across the only copy known to exist during your battle with the First Kind.”

Something about that clicked in my memory but I wasn’t sure what, something about the Darkwatch seemed familiar.

“So any suggestions as to how we can locate it?” Edgar asked eagerly.

Dad walked into the room and sat beside Mr. Miller. “I think you’re going to have to go to the Tavern at the End of Time.”

 “Are you kidding, Uncle Eli?” Jess asked as if she hadn’t heard him right.

“No, not at all,” he said bluntly as he looked directly at each of us.

That tone and look I was familiar with...  Dad wasn’t kidding.

“Oh, okay,” Jess said, and then grew quiet.

“Okay, I’ll bite, what is the Tavern at the End of Time?” I asked curious to find out about a place that could turn my cousin silent.

“The Tavern is one of the few places where time and space intersect,” my dad explained. “You can meet with people from any time in history. That’s what makes it so dangerous. You can learn your own fate or get lost in the time stream. It’s not for the faint of heart and I don’t particularly care for the idea of any of you going there.” His eyes lingered on me when he said that. “Unfortunately, I learned this morning that there was an incident last night that precipitated the withdrawal of the Skeleton Key Guild from all truces as of today.”

“What happened?” I had a good idea but I wanted to make sure.

“I’m not sure. From what I could learn it seemed that they had a mole in the Guild and were trying to catch the person responsible but lost them. They claim it was a Doorknob Society member. We told them we knew nothing about it, but they didn’t believe us and cut off contact.”

Damn it, this is because of me getting sloppy. I knew I should have never taken that meeting last night. But getting information out of the Guild was more difficult than any of the other Societies. Even Jess, a full member, isn’t kept in the loop on everything that goes on. It appeared as if the Societies had become more secretive as time went on.

“So what’s this mean?” Edgar asked.

“Paladin Academy is the only place that is completely safe. If you go anywhere else the Diesel Factories, Ranger Institute, or the Dying Star Markets there are no truces in effect. You have to be careful and keep your noses clean. This could be very dangerous.” Dad looked in my direction. I guess he was on board with everyone else that I was taking too many chances.

“What about me?” Jess chewed on her lip as she asked.

“The Guild will not want you to have contact with anyone outside of the SKG but seeing as how you live with us, I doubt they will try to enforce it. I left a message with your grandmother trying to find out if she knows anything. Once we learn more we can figure out how to deal with this.” He gave Jess a reassuring smile.

She nodded. “Thanks Uncle Eli.”

“For now I think we need to concentrate on finding the book,” Dad said. “And the best place to start is at the Tavern at the End of Time.”

“Sounds like fun.” I chuckled and Dad shot me the most disapproving look he could muster. I huffed and sat back in my seat.

“This is serious, Chloe.” Jess reprimanded with a stern look and I rolled my eyes in response.

“Okay, so is the Tavern really at the end of time?” I asked curiously and more seriously than any of them could imagine.

“The tavern is an intersection of time. Think of every moment in history as an old record, take all of them and stack them together and you have the whole of time bound together but not accessing one another. The hole in the middle of each record is where the Tavern exists, in all time periods,” Mr. Miller explained just as a teacher would, breaking down the subject so his students could understand it.

“How do we get there?” I asked.

“That’s a very good question.” Levi laughed and looked to my dad.

“No known entrance exists to the Tavern. Most people who have accessed it have done so by accident.”

“Great plan.” I rolled my eyes and sighed.

“I have an idea.” Edgar raised his hand like we were in school.

“Yes, Edgar?” Dad asked with a smile I knew well. One that always warned me that Dad knew what I was thinking or planning. That meant he already knew what Edgar was going to say.

“The Legend artifact can be used on any map and it’s believed it can find anything or any place. If we can use the Legend, we could find a way to the Tavern.” Edgar’s eyes lit up like it was Christmas morning.

“Now that sounds like one of our crazy plans.” I tapped the table and pointed to Edgar. “So how do we get to the Legend?”

“Jeremiah, he’s the head of the Mapmakers and a friend of my family, has been studying it ever since we recovered it. I can talk to him and see if he will let me have a look at it.” “What map will you use to attach it to?” I asked.