The Iron Bells

by Jeanette Battista

  Chapter Twenty

  I can't put it off any longer. I have to find the incantation Ryland used to bind Trick inside of Patrick. Our attack on the gate is only in a few more days. I am out of time and options. Mrs. Bowen still calls me, waiting and hoping for news. I need to have something to tell her. I need to at least try to help Patrick before, well, before.

  I walk the tunnel leading to Ryland's small office as I normally do, as if nothing is wrong. Everyone knows I sometimes come in here to get some quiet. I try not to act suspicious, even if what I am about to do would probably be considered treason, or at least extremely rude.

  I slip down the corridor, trying to keep an unobtrusive eye out for Ryland. He’s busy organizing the other groups tasked with the Gate mission, but that doesn’t mean I’m in the clear. Without knowing where or exactly when he’s meeting with them, or for how long, I could still get caught. Ryland is already suspicious enough of me; I can’t take the risk that he’ll put guards on Trick, or worse, move him before I can undo the binding.

  I round the corner leading to Ryland’s small office and I notice his door is partially closed. Odd. It’s either fully closed or fully open—Ryland usually doesn’t leave it half-open. It’s not like him. I slow my pace and begin my approach on silent feet. When I’m next to the door, I push it open lightly and get a look inside.

  Peter sits at the small table Ryland uses for a desk, poring over a set of papers. What on earth does Peter think he’s doing? I push open the door all the way and step inside. Peter looks up at the sound of my footstep, something I did deliberately.

  “What are you doing in here?” I ask, suspicion thick in my voice.

  He stands up, putting some space between him and the table. I tense, knowing that’s a sign someone is ready to fight. I glance down at the pages, but I can’t make out what’s on them. I focus on Peter, watching his expression carefully. There’s something nervous in his gaze but otherwise he looks calm.

  “Ryland asked me to get him some information on the lesser used tunnels,” he says, taking a step closer to me.

  The air feels charged suddenly, like I’m standing in a lightning storm. I stand my ground, but it takes everything I have not to look away. There’s something alive with malice in the room, like a snake poised to strike. I raise myself up as straight as I can and say calmly, “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  Peter nods, his face stern.

  “Good. Then perhaps you should get him the information he asked for.”

  I watch Peter walk out of the room, turning my body so I’m always facing him. There is something about the man that I just don’t trust and finding him in Ryland’s office without Ryland is not helping that. It doesn’t matter that I was coming in here to snoop myself; I don’t like the thought of Peter being in here looking at heaven alone knew what. What if he found out about Patrick?

  I wait until he’s disappeared down the corridor, then I return to Ryland’s office and shut the door. I take a look at the papers Peter was going through first, but nothing seems amiss. They are old plans for the tunnels that used to house the underground river that ran beneath parts of London. I head over to the small end table that the holds the lamp and reach underneath the drawer to find the key that Ry stashes there. He thinks I don't know about it, but I'd have to be blind to miss where he keeps it. Either that or he knows I know about it and trusts me with that knowledge.

  Maybe we both should have been more careful in who we trusted.

  I get the key and take it over to the large metal cabinet. It's not locked—it never is—and it is where Ry keeps gun chits and paperwork, maps and messages. And it's where he stores his lockbox, where all of the really important stuff goes. Most everything that's sensitive gets shredded and burned across various locations, but there are a few things that need to be kept on hand. I'm hoping that the binding ritual is one of them.

  I get the lock on the box open and pull out a stack of pages. Shielding the light of my torch with the doors of the cabinet, I begin to flip through them, trying to read their contents quickly. There are a few notes from other Resistance cells in Europe, a few receipts and then a sheaf of pages in a language I don't recognize with handwriting in the margins. I look closer and see a scrawled note about bindings at the top of one of the pages. Jackpot.

  I stuff the pages into the waistband of my jeans and pull my shirt down over them. I put everything back in its proper place and then return the key. It looks as if nothing has been disturbed. I make one more survey of the room to make sure I haven't forgotten anything then I hightail it out of the tunnels and back to Auntie's.

  I don't actually take a good look at the pages until I'm on the roof. The sky is threatening raid, the clouds grey and ominous. The wind has died so the air feels oppressive, like it has been weighted down by those clouds. I'll go inside at the first drop of rain, but for now, the roof seems the most likely place where I can find enough privacy to go over what I've found.

  Now that I can see, it looks like the writing is in a very old style of Latin. It's a copy of whatever the text was, probably copied many times over if the fuzziness of the type is an indicator. I squint at some of the words, unable to make out clearly what they might be. I have a rudimentary knowledge of Latin at best, so I don't spend too much time trying to decipher the words.

  Instead I turn my focus to the notes in the margins. It looks like someone has translated most of it and written notes about their thoughts on the ritual or whatever it is. The notes call for candles and a silver knife. I can get both of those items fairly easily at Auntie's. Other notes make less sense and I flip through the pages trying to get an idea of what exactly the incantation is supposed to do.

  It appears to be what I'm looking for: the ritual that I overheard Ryland mentioning. This must be what they had used to bind the demon to Patrick. I sift through the other notes, trying to get an idea if the process was reversible or how one would go about breaking the binding. What I find is not encouraging; it's the bare minimum of instructions and a brief incantation with question marks beside it. I copy down everything I can find relating to breaking the binding spell into a notebook of my own and jot my own notes and questions.

  A fat drop of water hits the top of my head. I quickly gather up my things and climb back into my bedroom. I'm going to need to go back underground to gather more information from the small library we've got, but also to return the pages I borrowed before anyone can notice they're missing. I had planned to stay indoors and ride out the weather, but I can't wait. I have no idea when they might move Patrick or what their plans are for him. I need to cut him loose as soon as possible or risk losing my chance to free him.

  I throw a set of spare clothes in my backpack along with the ritual notes and grab my slicker. The rain is pelting down, the skies going a dark grey. I pull the hood of the slicker over my head and dash through the downpour and back to the closest entrance to the Underground. I stop only to change into my spare clothes, leaving my soaked ones to dry atop the valise, and continue on to what passes for our library.

  It's a small rounded room with stacks of books piled haphazardly around. Some are paperbacks, some hardcovers, and some are just collections of pages placed in protectors that have been shoved into binders. I'm not sure where to start looking, so I gather up all of the puck shaped lights in the room and start sorting through the piles, grabbing whatever looks like it will be most useful.

  The useful pile is not what anyone would consider large. I pull out the largest book and leaf through it, trying to make sense of what I see. I jot down anything that looks remotely helpful, completely out of my depth. I am not a scholar or a much of a reader—that was always where Patrick excelled.

  I'm finishing up the last book when I feel someone watching me. I look up to see Dham leaning in the doorway, eyes curiously scanning the room. "What are you doing?"

  "Just some research," I answer, closing my notebook so he can't get a glimpse of what I had w
ritten.

  "Really? Is it for the Gate?" He steps into the room, eyes glinting curiously.

  "Some stuff for a friend, that's all." I sweep everything into my pack, leaving the books I'd been looking through in a random stack. I stand up and stretch, muscles stiff from sitting hunched over for too long.

  "Find anything interesting?" His lips are curled in a smile as he looks at me. I wonder if I've got ink on my face or something like that to make him smile in that way.

  "Not much." I sigh, swinging the pack over my shoulder before I remember. I still haven't dropped the pages back into the lockbox in Ryland's office. Crap. I can’t very well do it with Dham looking on. "I need to be getting on—I've got to swing by the range to see if I can find Ryland."

  "I was just there and didn't see him." He pauses, digging his hands in his pockets. "I'll find him with you, and then we can walk back to the house together."

  Of course. Now he'd offer—the one time when I need him to go away. "That's really not nec--"

  "There you are!" Cat's exasperated voice echoes from farther down the hall. "I thought we were going to get some food after practice." I can hear her footsteps stomping closer. She stops in the doorway and pokes her head into the room. When she sees me, her cupid bow lips draw down in a dark frown. Even that looks adorable and girlish.

  For once I'm grateful for Cat's presence. She's just what I need to get Dham going in the opposite direction from me. I turn to Dham to tell him to go ahead, but he speaks first to Cat. "I just ran into Amaranth." He raises his eyebrows at me. "Come with us to grab some dinner."

  I see the positively sour expression that crosses Cat's face and have to refrain from immediately saying yes just to spite her. "No, you guys go ahead. I'll catch up with you back at Auntie's."

  I ignore Cat's look of glee. Dham doesn't see it, or if he does, he's a much better actor than I thought. "You sure?"

  "That's really too bad," Cat jumps in, words bubbling from her mouth like champagne from a bottle. "But we need to get going." She tugs on his arm and begins to all but drag him away from the library.

  "See you later," Dham calls before Cat pulls him out of sight.

  I rub my tired eyes. I wonder, not for the first time, if Cat had put some kind of tracking beacon on Dham so that she could find him at a moment's notice. It made it difficult to get any kind of time alone with him—although I was being ridiculous to think about alone time with anyone. I had too many things to worry about as it was. I didn't need to add him to the list.

  I hurry back down the corridor, hoping that Ryland's office would still be empty. Ryland has usually headed home at this hour, but that doesn't mean that one of his lieutenants wasn't using it; I wasn't the only one with an open invitation. Thankfully it's clear and I manage to replace the ritual pages in the lockbox without interruption. I speed back the way I came to collect my things and return to the house to try and puzzle out a workable ritual to break the bond and free Patrick.