Shay finished off his tequila then threw the bottle across the room where it smashed against the kitchen counter. "We're both too old for this."
"You never did tell me why you wanted to save him."
"I have orders to get Nikolas to headquarters so we can lure Jack into joining us."
"You want him to join you now?" Dean asked.
"It's not my call. It's Father's. The relationship between The Inquisition of Purity and the Zurvan Syndicate has been rocky at best for decades. It was easier when Sand played mediator. They kept both sides honest and fair. We used to actually work together, all three of us. We would partner up for cases that would benefit Chronomancers in general. Sure, we always hated each other and would return to hunting each other down after we finished what we needed to do, but for that time, we worked together. Now, we'd rather watch the world burn than hold hands."
There was something he had to say. "You know, we made a good team back there, you and I."
"Yeah, we did."
"If only you weren't working to destroy the world."
"This isn't the place to discuss this, Amethyst. Politics are complicated. No group is innocent in this. We have our reasons for the things we do. I know you think the Inquisition of Purity is your enemy, but I want to ask you one question, Detective. What group helped you get that boy back?"
He had a point. It was a solid point that Dean couldn't argue.
Three solid knocks on the hotel room door drew their attention. Dean stood up and quietly moved toward the door. He drew his knife from his belt. Who would have been knocking on their exact door at nearly one in the morning? Cops? FBI agents? Were they followed? Dean's hand tightened around the hilt as he peeked through the peephole.
A Mediterranean-looking man with harsh facial features, tired warm eyes, and a familiar head of black, glossy hair stood there, looking worried. He stepped closer and spoke through the door. "Mr. Amethyst, right? I know you're in there and I know it's late, but I was told by a Sand spy that you were here. Please let me in and let me know he's okay. My name is Leonardo Valentino. Can I please speak with my son?"
Chapter 20
Around midnight, Jack found himself still curled up on the floor of the hotel suite with Thyme sound asleep in his arms. It had been a couple of hours of quiet weeping over his lost friend while attempting to not disturb Thyme and Marjorie. The last thing he needed was his birth mother prying into his life and emotional state. Jack had no way of knowing what the future held for him, but with the little boy clutching his hand while he dreamed, he knew he couldn't give up.
A high-pitched three-tone ringing came from the kitchen. He ignored it until it happened again three minutes later. The screen of Marjorie's phone lit up, filling the kitchenette with soft blue glow in the darkness. Jack gingerly slid his arm out from under Thyme then stood up from the dark green rug. The sound of the phone rang again, drawing him onto the cold tiles of the kitchen. He picked up Marjorie's phone from the counter to see the messages that popped up there.
Where are you?
Valentino has been moved. Update soon.
Video attached. It's graphic. Good work.
Jack looked at the phone numbers that had no names. He hesitated, glancing over at the bedroom door. Marjorie would be upset if she found him snooping through her phone, but there it was, plain as day. Valentino. They were communicating about Niki. Did this video have something to do with him as well? Chewing on his bottom lip, Jack picked up the phone and opened the video. He turned the volume down so it wouldn't wake anyone up before he sat at the kitchen table.
Agents in all black stood in front of the camera inside a warehouse, laughing and gathered around something. When they moved out of the way, Jack gasped. Niki was on his knees in his boxers with his black hair on the floor around him. His head was shaved and he looked out of it, as if he was drugged. One of the agents approached him, smoking a cigarette. The agent shoved the burning end against Niki's collar bone, making him grunt through the pain.
Jack continued to watch as the horrors grew. The agents beat him, burned him, stripped him, bit him, and cut him. When the video swapped to the interior of a freezer, the torture only grew. He watched with tears flowing as the agents used pliers, needles, and a meat hook to reduce his brother into a lump of quivering, broken flesh. When they pinned Niki to the floor and raped him with that meat hook, Jack's horror turned to instant hatred.
He stormed to the bedroom, kicking the door open violently. Jack went to the bed and held the phone above Marjorie's face. "Get up!"
Marjorie stirred awake to the sound of Niki crying on the video. She squinted as she watched a few seconds, her surprise turning to shock. "Jack, what is this?"
"You tell me. It was on your phone. That's Niki! That's my brother. Look what they're doing to him. Look at it!"
"Stop. Get off of me."
"No. You did this. You helped them do this to my Time Knight. Is he even alive? Did they kill him in that freezer? Oh, God. What did I just watch?"
Marjorie shoved him away as she sat up and gathered her black hair over one shoulder. "Jack, you knew what waited for him in Guantanamo."
"This didn't happen in Guantanamo. This is worse than anything I've ever seen happen down there. This is barbaric. This is . . . why?"
"Calm down. You're going to wake Thyme up. He needs his sleep."
"You knew they were going to torture Niki like this. You knew it, didn't you?" Jack shouted at her. "You came back here with me so I wouldn't try to stop it."
"You shouldn't have been on my phone."
"You wouldn't have told me. You wanted it to be a secret. Why is this video coming from a public site? Is this all over the internet?"
Marjorie attempted to disarm the explosive situation. "Jack, let's sit down and we can talk about this like adults."
Was she serious? "Like adults? Do adults condone what happened in that freezer? Do adults place blame for heinous crimes and terror attacks on two boys from a small town? Is that what adults do now?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"Don't lie to me!" Jack threw the phone at Marjorie before running across the bedroom to the sliding glass door. He fought with the frozen latch until the ice broke then lunged across the balcony to the railing. "This ends here."
Marjorie wrapped a bath robe around herself and came to the doorway. "What are you doing? Get back inside. It's too cold out there."
Jack pulled himself up onto the railing. His bare feet slipped in the ice and snow, but he continued to climb until he was standing on the two-inch-wide bar of metal overlooking the busy streets seven floors below. The wind whipped around him as cars honked and people went about their normal lives. Jack closed his eyes.
"Jackson, don't do this. You can't do this. Suicide is not the answer. I know that video looks bad, but he's alive."
"You don't know that."
"I do. Nikolas is still alive. I'm reading it right here." She scrolled through messages on her phone. "He's gone missing. He was taken by someone from that freezer and moved to an unknown location. He's alive. We're going to find him and make sure he gets the medical attention he needs before he is transferred to Guantanamo."
Where they would torture him more. "They'll just do it again. They'll hurt him again."
"Jack, he did this for you. He confessed to those crimes. I know you're a child and you can't comprehend what that means, but-"
"I can comprehend it all perfectly well, thank you. I'm not stupid. You thought you could befriend me, make me trust you, make me forget about my friend. You thought you and your Syndicate could do whatever they wanted to Niki and to me and get away with it. You thought reuniting me with the sage would make me focus on raising him and being there for him instead. The dinner, stories, family time . . . it was all your way to distract me, to make me think about something else so I wouldn't try to find out any more about Niki. It didn't work. I know now."
"Step down from the railing, so
n."
Jack barked at her, feeling hot with anger despite the blizzard circling around him. "I'm not your son. You gave birth to me, but that's where it stopped. My mother is dead because you and the Syndicate killed her. I will not be a pawn in your game. If you could do that to Niki, you'll do it to me, too."
"That's not true. He's an Avelayan. You are a beautiful, strong, intelligent Iskaydrian man. You were bred and born to be a leader. You carry the DNA of an ancient race, bred to rule the world, Jack. Your father was special. He chose me to carry his child, a perfect match of Iskaydrian traits. You have power in you that you cannot begin to understand. You're not a ruffian low-born like Valentino. No one would dare to compromise your seed."
"What the hell are you talking about?"
Marjorie held out her hand as she stepped closer, but stopped. "Between your thighs is the ability to father an army of Chronomancers to change the world. We will find you twenty Iskaydrian women of perfect breeding to be your wives and bring you children. We need you for the future of our race. Didn't you think it was weird that you grew up not knowing any of this and then a few months before your eighteenth birthday, the attacks in Mana Glen happened? You will be an adult soon, Jack. That is when you will take over the Zurvan Syndicate as our Director."
"I will never be your Director. I will never join the Syndicate."
"You will, even if we have to force you. We will take away everything you love until you do join us. I would prefer to do this the loving way. I am your mother. I gave you life, Jack. I don't want you to hurt. I don't want you to throw all of this away."
"What are you going to do if I jump off this balcony?" Jack asked, his heels hanging over the edge. "What will you do if I die down there on the sidewalk?"
"Jack, don't. Please don't."
"Why not? If I'm so important to your Syndicate, you'll just take me in time to before this. I'll come back to life."
"I can't do that right now. The higher-ups have locked this time and location. I can't get around the base mark. Jack, if you die, you'll be dead. I can't. Don't do this. We can discuss this. Are you gay, son? Are you scared about being with women?"
He clasped his left ring finger in his hand, twirling the shoelace ring in a circle. "I have a fiance, a girl I love with all of my heart. You people took her from me. You've been hurting her, doing experiments on her, her own father has been. Why do you think I would ever join you? And now you do this to my best and only friend? You made him less than human. He was an object to those agents. And you think I want to be a part of that?"
The thudding of tiny feet approached as Thyme called out to him from inside the room. "Jack? Jack, it's cold. What are you doing up there?"
Marjorie spoke to him. "Go inside, Thyme. I'll get your daddy down and you can go back to sleep."
Jack held out his arms. "Come here, Thyme. Come to me."
"Yes, Jack."
"No!" Marjorie tried to grab onto Thyme and stop him, but the boy bit her arm. "Ouch, you bit me! You Avelayan brat."
Jack squatted down on the railing and held onto it to keep from falling off. He pulled Thyme up there with him then stood and wrapped his arms around the boy. "If I go, he goes, too."
"Jack, don't kill the boy. He didn't do anything wrong. Listen to me, please. You don't have to do this. We can compromise. I love you."
He snapped at her. "You lie."
"I love you, I do. I loved your father and I love you. You can marry Elizabeth. You don't have to be with those other women. We can do this our own way, just me and you and Ellie. I'll have them stop the experiments on her. I'll do anything you want. Just don't jump. Come down from the railing."
Jack glanced down at the boy's large white eyes staring up at him. There was no sign of fear there, only trust. He looked behind him, his feet slipping on the icy railing. It was a long way down. He began to shiver, clutching the sage boy close to him. "If we go, we go together. You said it yourself you can't bring me back."
"What do you want, then? What can I do to fix this? Jack, I'll do anything."
It was simple, yet no one seemed to understand it. "I want Niki."
"What?"
"I want my Time Knight. I want my brother."
"What's done is done. He's gone. He's-"
Jack cut her off. "You said he was alive."
"Yes, but I'm sure the FBI and the Syndicate will find him shortly."
"Make sure they don't."
"What?" Marjorie held her robe closed as the wind picked up.
"Niki is out of their hands. Make sure he stays that way. Call them. Call off your men. I saw the video. I saw what they did to him. If he was anyone other than Niki, I would have said there was no way he could recover. Call your men and tell them that Niki is dead so they'll stop looking for him. You do this and I'll come down from here and we'll go inside."
For a few moments, Marjorie stared at him, her dirty blonde hair whipping around her face. She finally held up her phone and called someone. She placed her phone against her ear. "All active agents, this is Chronomancer Marjorie Dunley. You are to suspend all searching for Nikolas Valentino and return to headquarters. If you are undercover in the FBI, you are advised to inform them that Nikolas Valentino has been found dead. He succumbed to his injuries that were recorded on video. His body was moved by me and disposed of secretly. I will be transferring Jackson Carter to headquarters within the week. Who is this? Yes, I figured as much. Thank you, Director. I tried. Farewell."
Jack drew a breath of relief. "Is it done?"
"Niki is officially dead. No one will bother looking for him. If he's somewhere safe, he will remain there. Now, please come down from there. Please."
"One more thing."
Marjorie's voice cracked with her desperation. "Anything."
"I want to see him. I want to hear his voice and touch him. I have to know he's okay."
"I can make that happen in the morning. He's here."
Jack looked around at the nearby balconies for other rooms. "Here?"
"Director Mason was the person I was talking to on the call. He said police were in-bound to this hotel because they had a sighting and the FBI tracked Niki here. He's with a detective from Mana Glen. Don't worry. They're being called off as we speak. Nikolas will heal in peace."
"He's in this hotel?"
"Yes. I will find exactly where in the morning. Let him recover tonight."
"How do I now you're not lying?" Jack asked, tightening his grip on the sage.
"You'll have to trust me. Jack, if you don't see Niki tomorrow, you can throw me off that balcony instead."
Jack nodded his head. He slid off the railing to land solidly on the balcony with Thyme secure and safe in his arms. He held the boy to his chest as he gathered his wits and calmed his frenzied emotions. It was fixed. He did it. He won. Even Marjorie couldn't watch her own son die. It had been a crazy risk, but it was one he was more than willing to take in order to get what he wanted. Niki had sacrificed enough for him. Now it was his turn to repay that loyalty.
Marjorie guided the two of them back into the hotel room. "Kitchen. Now. It's too cold for you out there, Jack. You are an Iskaydrian. Your body is weak and doesn't cope well with extreme temperatures."
Jack did as the agent told him. He sat with Thyme at the kitchen table, huddled together beneath the heavy wool blanket from the bed that Marjorie placed around them. Jack whispered to the boy, who had not stopped squeezing his finger. "It's okay, Thyme. I wasn't going to jump."
"I know. I trust you."
Marjorie mumbled to herself as she turned on the espresso machine. She got down two cups as the room filled with the rich fragrance of coffee and hot milk. After she poured the coffee into the ceramic cups, she came over to sit across from Jack in the lights that she kept dim. She slid one of them to him. "Hope you like it."
"You're not mad at me?"
Marjorie shook her head as she swirled her coffee. "I expected something like this to happen. I told Director Maso
n that prying your Time Knight away from you was a bad idea, just asking for trouble. He didn't listen to me. Jack, you need to know that I didn't have any part in making that video or what happened in it. I didn't know they would do that to him. I only saw what you showed me and I know it was overkill. That was meant to torture him to death. They wanted to ensure there was no way the two of you could find each other again. Director Mason knows you are unstoppable with your Time Knight at your side. That scares him."
"All that matters to me is knowing Niki is alive and finding Ellie."
"I can make both of those happen now. The FBI and any Syndicate agents working on your case believe Niki is dead. They believe he was the one who orchestrated everything. Not you. You've already been cleared. Admittedly, I should have found a way to keep Nikolas out of harm's way before now, but I wasn't ready to make that call. I thought you would be easier to manipulate with Niki out of the picture."
Jack's lips turned up in a sly grin. "And what do you think about that now?"
"I admit I was wrong. I am truly sorry for what happened to your friend. What can I do to help him now?"
"Keep your word." He reached out to squeeze his biological mother's cold hand. "Take me to see him once he's awake. Before that, I need you to take me somewhere. I can't drive and it's too cold to walk."
"What do you need? Where do you need to go?"
"Shopping. I missed Niki's favorite holiday, so I'm going to take everything I need to that hotel room and we're going to celebrate together like we always did before all of this happened. I don't care if he's unconscious. I will have Christmas with my brother."
She smiled. "Drink your coffee and dress warmly. We'll pick up some more clothes while we're out there. I think I saw Thyme's clothes in the dresser in the bedroom. We'll pick up everything you need for Niki. I owe you at least this much. I'm not your enemy."
Jack's eyes narrowed as he drank his coffee. He had no way of knowing exactly who was his enemy now. When he blinked, the images from the video flashed across his vision, haunting his mind. He could hear the pleading cries of his friend in the howling of the wind outside. He set down his cup and held his head in his hands. It could take a long time to help Niki recover from this, but he was ready to do whatever it took. No one would take his brother away from him again.
Chronomancer (Time Mage Saga Book 1) Page 35
