The Doorknob Society (The Doorknob Society Saga)

by Fletcher, MJ

  “Great,” I replied not bothering to dispute that we were not officially a couple.

  Slade squeezed my hand letting me know he was there for me and I did the same to him.

  “Great, we’re ready then?” He eased Jess off him, stood and walked to the opposite wall. He reached into his pocket, pulled out a set of keys and flipped through them until he found a specific skeleton key.

  My stomach rumbled as I felt him activate the vessel. It was different than when Jess had used her abilities. I could feel Nightshade’s confidence in his powers and he manipulated the energy expertly, creating a portal in seconds. He spun the key ring on his finger like an expert gunslinger did with a gun and slipped them back into his pocket.

  “Let’s go.” He gestured toward the crimson portal that pulsed on the wall.

  I turned and hugged Slade tightly. “I’ll be back.” Then I punched Edgar lightly in the shoulder as I passed him. Jess had walked over to stand beside Nightshade and I smiled at her. She returned my smile and I knew that somehow this mess had brought us somewhat closer and we were going to need to talk about that soon.

  I turned to Nightshade. “I’m ready.”

  “Good, see you all soon.” Nightshade leaned past me and kissed Jess on the cheek and she blushed bright red. Then he stepped through the portal and I followed behind him.

  Chapter 26

  Status: I meet a whack job.

  We stepped out of the portal into an alleyway. The sounds of rushing cars and people talking buzzed like swarming bees in my ears after the relative quiet of Nightshade’s house. It was cold and the sun looked to be in about the same place so I assumed we were still somewhere on the east coast. Nightshade didn’t wait for me, he started down the alley. The crimson portal door slammed shut with such force that debris flew around us as if a mini tornado had hit.

  “Where are we?” I asked as I caught up to him.

  “Philly.”

  We walked out of the alley and I after a quick glance I realized that we were in Center City. I should have guessed it would be a city, most Old Kind preferred to be in older cities and Philly had most others in the country beat in the age department. Many active portals can be found in older cities which made it a hotbed for the Old Kind. You’d be amazed at what can happen by making a wrong turn in a city like Rome.

  “Now where?” I asked.

  “This way.”

  We made our way down the street until we reached Maggie’s Irish Pub on the corner. Nightshade yanked the door open and we walked in. The bright sunlight rushed through the room spotlighting the bartender. He raised his hand above his eyes to shield the light and get a look at us. James nodded to him and he nodded back and then he waved us along. We moved swiftly to the back of the room and stopped at a weathered old door that appeared as if it hadn’t been opened in decades.

  The door creaked when Nightshade opened it as if protesting at being disturbed and for a moment I hesitated in following Nightshade down the stairs and into the waiting darkness. When the blackness swallowed him up, I held my breath and plunged in behind him thinking that I would see a light the further down I traveled. But all that greeted me was silence and more darkness.

  A click echoed off the walls and suddenly everything was bathed in a red glow. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the change and saw Nightshade holding up his Skeleton Key, the crimson illumination serving as a perfect torchlight.

  “No reason to stumble about in the dark.” He grinned and for once I agreed with him.

  “How much farther?”

  “Not too far.”

  “Couldn’t we have just opened a portal closer to him?”

  “Doesn’t work that way, Masters. There are dead spots everywhere and someone who doesn’t want to be found will use them to hide. What you need is someone who knows where to find them, someone like me.”

  Leave it up to Nightshade to compliment himself.

  “This is it.”

  We stopped by a bunch of packing crates pushed up against a dingy old brick wall. Nightshade stretched his arm out passed me and rapped quickly on the wall three times. As I stood in the grimy cellar I considered the possibility that this could be all some sick joke he was playing on me but the thought insistently faded. I don’t know why but I knew James wouldn’t do that to me.

  “Who is it?” A scratchy voice cackled through the wall.

  “James Nightshade.”

  The crates began to move and I realized they were opening like an ordinary door. When fully open, a man stood hunched over in the doorway regarding us with suspicious eyes.

  After an anxious moment of silence he said, “You’ve certainly grown, James.” He turned to me, his eyes once again suspicious as they roamed over me. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Chloe Masters.”

  The man’s aging eyes grew wide and he leaned closer to get a better look at me. He sniffed the air around me, then licked his lips.

  “I smell Grimm on you and thank God you look like your mother and not that crazy father of yours. Come on in, Guilders,” he said turning and disappearing into the dark.

  I almost corrected him about me being a Guilder but one look from Nightshade and I kept my mouth shut. We followed him into a narrow dank and dark hallway that opened up onto a larger circular room. A tangle of pillows and blankets lay bundled to one side and what look like a mix of boxes and trash littered the entire area.

  “How have you been, Hobart?” Nightshade asked ignoring the mess.

  “Good, good, my boy, you know those buggers will never catch old Hobart.”

  “I know Hobart. You hide well. I only came looking for you because Chloe here is in need of your help.”

  Hobart spun around and rushed like a speeding bullet across the distance between us. I tried to step out of his path and stumbled over something. Nightshade moved faster than I ever could have imagined. His one arm wrapped around my waist preventing me from falling and his other arm shot up blocking Hobart from coming too close.

  “I just want to see her eyes, James, they look so much like her mother’s.” Hobart pleaded.

  Nightshade would have none of it. “It’s best you keep your distance, Hobart.”

  He squinted regarding James once again with suspicion and it was a few minutes before he took a step back away from me.

  Nightshade let his arm ease at my waist but he didn’t remove me it. He kept me close.

  Hobart’s eyes never left me and his intense stare made me nervous.

  I wanted to get this over so I quickly asked, “Did you work on something with my father?”

  His eyes darted fearfully around the room as if he expected something or someone to jump out of the shadows and attack him at any moment.

  “Maybe, maybe not. Guilders and DS don’t like one another, don’t like working together.” He blinked rapidly as he watched me.

  I pulled my phone from my pocket and flipped to my photos and the picture of all the signatures of the people who worked on the bridge design. I held it out and Hobart leaned in till his nose was nearly touching the screen.

  “The bridge? Where did you get the bridge?” Hobart asked.

  “My father and Levi Miller.”

  “He said he wouldn’t tell anyone about the bridge. He promised. I kept it; I kept the promise.” Hobart turned and rushed to a corner and started digging through boxes.

  I turned to Nightshade and he shrugged having no idea what Hobart was up to.

  “Mother would be mad; she didn’t like Hobart playing with non-Guilders. Made Hobart promise he wouldn’t do it and Eli said he wouldn’t tell, he promised. I kept the promise; I have it here somewhere.”

  “What did my dad promise?”

  “He stood here and he promised Hobart.”

  I rushed forward frightening Hobart and he fell trying to scramble over boxes and crates.

  “Don’t be frightened. I need to know when my dad Elijah Masters stood here with you.”

  “Two weeks ago
Elijah came to talk to me about the bridge and our old class. He told me that he’d figured out the secret but needed Hobart’s help. Hobart doesn’t like DS but Elijah isn’t DS anymore so Hobart didn’t break his promise to mother.”

  “What did he need from you?”

  “My old maps and to point the way of course,” Hobart confirmed with a nod. “Elijah is smart, always was that one, even for DS he was smart. But he knew they would come for us, he told Hobart to hide, find somewhere new that they’d be coming. And Eli was right. You’re not the first I’ve felt looking for me; they’re coming for Hobart.”

  “Who’s coming, Hobart?” Nightshade asked, stepping up beside me.

  “The bad ones, James, you’ve lost to them already and now they come for more blood.”

  “What?”

  It was barely a whisper but I could feel the anger in Nightshade’s voice.

  “What maps did my dad want?”

  “The maps that point the way to the Legend. Eli and Talia figured out the clues years ago but then the fall happened and Eli had to wait.” Hobart tore through his raggedy boxes.

  “Talia, my mom, what does she have to do with all this?”

  “Eli and she solved the riddle. But they came for them and then the fall came.”

  ‘Who came for them and what are you talking about?” I asked impatiently and stepped toward Hobart. Nightshade’s firm hand on my shoulder stopped me.

  “Masters, that won’t help. Let me try.”

  I pushed his hand off me and backed away to cool down. I was annoyed. My dad stood here only two weeks ago and I wanted to know more. But how did I make sense of a crazy guy’s ramblings?

  James grabbed an empty milk crate, turned it over and sat down across from Hobart. “Hobart, when Elijah came here what did he want?”

  Hobart cocked his head and smiled as if surprised that Nightshade was there. “James, my boy, you look so much better than last time I saw you. No more anger or tears.”

  I didn’t know what he was talking about but it seemed to bother Nightshade.

  “No, Hobart, no more. Now please tell me what happened with Elijah.”

  “Elijah Masters, he was a friend of mine from back at Paladin Academy. We had a study group. My mother hated me working with anyone but Guilders. She only allowed my friendship with Elijah because of Talia. Eli and Talia had studied the Chronicles and were obsessed with the artifacts of the First Kind. Eli was convinced the way to finding them was building a bridge. So we took the project on and tried to build it. We had thought we’d succeeded but we lacked a mapmaker. So it failed”

  “But why did he come to you again? What changed?”

  “Those DS people are bad. Eli is smart too smart for the likes of them. They said he lied to them. They said he was stealing. They said he violated the truce with the Guild and hurt Talia, but Eli loved her. I know, I remember... I was there.”

  My breath caught in my throat at the thought of Dad betraying my mom. It wasn’t the first I had heard of it and I still couldn’t bring myself to believe it, and it seemed neither did Hobart.

  “Eli came to me. He told me there were people after him. That the bridge had worked and we had opened a doorway all those years ago. He said he knew how to get the Legend but he needed my old maps and compass. I told him they were out of date, but he insisted that they were perfect. I told him my mother had them and she would never let him have them. He said he would take care of it and warned me to hide when he left. He told me not to trust anyone. That we were all being betrayed, he warned me that they’d come.”

  “Who are they?” Nightshade asked and I could hear the anger mount in his voice.

  “You poor boy, you know who, they already came for your blood now they want mine.”

  “We need to leave.” Nightshade turned to me his eyes narrowed and his mouth set in a thin angry line.

  “Wait we need more information.”

  “No, we need to go now.”

  I didn’t know what Hobart was talking about, though it got more of a reaction from Nightshade than I had ever seen before. But I wasn’t about to quit asking questions knowing Dad had been here only two weeks ago. Two weeks. Something clicked in my head... a similar story.

  “Hobart your mom, did she keep your maps and compass?”

  “Yes, mother always kept old things. I told Eli she wouldn’t let him have them. He said he would take them and she would never know. I told him she would call the HVO.”

  Something sounded familiar and then I realized... it was the case DI Emory had me working on. The felon had been my father the whole time.

  “Hobart is your last name Blackbane?”

  “Hobart Blackbane, my family has been SKG for generations.” He puffed out his chest.

  “I was researching a case of theft for DI Emory, where someone stole maps and old equipment from Edna Blackbane.” I glanced at Nightshade and knew he was thinking the same as me. My dad had stolen what he needed.

  “Not my fault, mother can’t blame me. I didn’t do it. Hobart is good, I told Eli not to do it.”

  “What were the maps to, Hobart?” James asked.

  “Old and useless, portals that haven’t been used in centuries, plus the path to the Infinity Library of course,” he said as if the answer was obvious.

  “I think that’s our next stop,” Nightshade said anxiously. “Now let’s get out of here.” He already had his key out and was fiddling with it.

  “Thank you, Hobart.” I said but he had turned away busy looking through his trash.

  We retraced our steps down the narrow pathway and pushed past the packing crates to find ourselves in the dark hallway we had entered from Maggie’s Irish Pub.

  Nightshade and I suddenly stopped. Something wasn’t right, we both felt it. For a supposed dead spot, there was far too much energy flowing through the hallway. Nightshade grasped his Skeleton Key and a crimson glow surrounded him, his eyes lit with an inner fire. I reached into my bag wrapping my hand around my doorknob and it instantly sprang to life sending a jolt through me.

  “They’re here,” Nightshade hissed.

  “Surrender,” the voice boomed from the end of the hallway.

  I turned and there stood the man in black.

  He stepped toward us, a rolling wave of energy preceding him headed along the hallway straight for us. We didn’t hesitate, we wrapped ourselves around each other bracing for the onslaught of power that was sure to hit like a massive wave crashing to shore.

  “We can’t fight him, we need to run,” I said hearing my own fear.

  “Agreed,” Nightshade said and though I heard a twinge of fear in his voice it was overpowered by courage and I suddenly felt more courageous myself.

  We turned to run and the blast of pure energy hit, rocking the corridor, tearing us apart and sending us flying in opposite directions. Disoriented, I tried to pull myself up though I was only partially successful. I needed to stop and take a breath and that’s when I saw Nightshade trying to do the same. I nearly panicked when I saw blood dripping down his face from his scalp.

  I shot a quick glance down the hall; the guy was still headed toward us. Anger bubbled inside me as my thoughts turned to my missing father, my injured grandmother, my friends putting themselves in harm’s way for me and the blood dripping from Nightshade’s head. And coming toward me was the man responsible for it all.

  The hair on my neck stood on end and rage boiled like hot lava deep inside me. My hand had remained wrapped around my doorknob almost as if it had been frozen to it. I focused whatever power I possessed, since I had yet to fully grasp the extent of my abilities, on the doorknob. I don’t know if my anger helped but a rushing heat raced through me that I’d never felt before and it poured from me into the doorknob filling it like a pot ready to boil over.

  I wanted this man to hurt as much as he hurt those I loved, so instead of opening a portal... I released the built-up energy. A blue, massive wave of pure power exploded from the doorknob, rush
ed down the hall and slammed into my adversary, toppling and dragging him backwards like a mighty wave reclaiming everything in its path.

  I staggered to my feet and rushed to help Nightshade though he had already managed to get up and was wiping at his head. He laughed when he saw the blood on his hand as if it didn’t matter in the least to him.

  The crates concealing Hobart’s narrow entrance had fallen away and Hobart peeked out to see what had happened. He blinked rapidly and narrowed his gaze on the hallway to where the guy was just getting to his feet.

  “They want your blood— both of you—now run. And tell Eli he owes old Hobart.” He reached in his jacket pocket and pulled out a worn and beaten old key that glowed faintly and ran down the corridor yelling like a madman.

  “We need to get out of here,” Nightshade cautioned, blood continuing to trickle down his face.

  “We can’t just leave Hobart.”

  “He made his choice, Masters, and he did it for us. Do you really want to deny him bravery? I’m leaving; are you coming or not.”

  He didn’t wait for an answer; he turned in the opposite direction and stumbled along. I didn’t want to desert Hobart but then again Nightshade was right. He had made his choice. Besides Nightshade was bleeding and I couldn’t let him wander off on his own to get lost or killed. He wasn’t a favorite of mine but I wasn’t about to let anything happen to him.

  I rushed after him grabbing his arm and shoving my shoulder beneath to help him along since he wasn’t too steady on his feet. We made it far enough down the hall that the sounds of battle behind us become a distant whisper. The flow of energy around us increased letting us know that we had left whatever dead spot Hobart had tried unsuccessfully to hide in.

  “Are you up to opening a portal back home?” I asked. I would have done it myself but since it was Nightshade’s house we’d return to I had no idea what type of SKG booby traps he had set for any DS members trying to portal in, and I didn’t want to take a chance and find out.

  “Let me try.”

  Nightshade had wiped away most of the blood from his face and the wound had at least stopped bleeding. He pulled his skeleton key from the inside pocket of his jacket and activated it. The power rolled off it quickly and a doorway sprang up in front of us. It wavered for a second but Nightshade closed his eyes concentrating and it became solid. Pushing it open we stepped through back into his house.