by Mari Carr
Sebastian pointed to Franco, who was still lost in his study of the poetry book. “Franco was a lost legacy.”
Franco didn’t bother to look up. Instead, he just waved his hand.
“The Grand Master asked me to track down some of these lost legacies,” Juliette said.
When she didn’t add anything else, Vincent shook his head. “Thanks for the bullshit, watered-down version.”
“Vincent,” Christian hissed. He obviously thought he was being rude, but his nerves were shot, his temper barely contained.
The fact that most of his anger was toward himself and the idea that Christian had been forced to defend them alone didn’t matter right now. He’d found a target for his simmering fury.
“Listen,” Devon said, stepping toward him.
Vincent’s gaze slid to the other man. A better target. “No, you listen. You put my trinity in danger, armed us with only a few scraps of the facts we needed.”
Sebastian glanced at Christian. It was a quick look, but it was enough.
Vincent turned to Christian. “You knew?”
Christian didn’t hesitate to reply, even in the face of Vincent’s anger. While he was pissed as hell, his respect for his partner grew even more. “Yeah. Some of it. Sebastian called and told me about the purists right after our binding ceremony.”
“You didn’t tell us,” Charlotte said. Vincent was angry, but she was hurt. It was her response that packed more of a punch with Christian, whose shoulders slumped.
“Chuck, I—”
“I swore him to secrecy,” Sebastian interjected. “Told him he couldn’t tell you.”
Christian was loyal to those he loved; Vincent had recognized that within hours of meeting him. Sebastian had used that attribute against his brother.
Vincent stared at Christian. He was visibly tense. Clearly he was waiting for Vincent to lash out. Problem was, Vincent understood why he remained silent. He respected it even if it did piss him off. Vincent gave him a brief nod, and Christian sagged in relief.
Devon’s phone rang. He frowned at it and walked out of the room. Juliette stroked his arm as he went past.
“Purists,” Vincent repeated. “So they’ve found a way to keep certain legacies from becoming members. That still doesn’t explain what you’re doing in those tunnels.”
“Tunnels!” Franco cried out loudly. “Charlotte, what’s a sandhog?”
Charlotte walked over to Christian and glanced down at the book. Her eyes widened. “Oh my God.”
“What?” Christian asked, stepping next to her.
She took the book of poems from his hands. “Sandhogs are the laborers, the men who created the tunnels back in the late eighteen hundreds. They blasted and shoveled and a lot of them died with their efforts. I mean, it’s not like they had the massive construction equipment that exists nowadays. The tunnels were dug by hand.” Charlotte lifted the book. “By sandhogs.”
“Yeah. I sort of figured that out, since the poems mention the construction but…” Christian hesitated.
“But what?” Charlotte said.
“I can see why that book was never published. Annie was supposed to be a renowned poet of the day, right?”
Charlotte nodded.
Juliette pulled out a laptop, popped on some headphones and started working away at something.
“Those poems aren’t very good. In fact, they feel sort of unpolished or contrived. They don’t make a great deal of sense or work together as a whole.”
Franco’s eyes widened. “They’re a cipher.”
Charlotte gasped, then dashed to the desk with Franco. “Holy shit.”
“Cipher?” Vincent asked.
“It’s a code,” Franco explained. “A way of encrypting information.”
Vincent scowled. “I know what a cipher is. How is the poetry book a cipher?”
“That’s what we need to figure out,” Charlotte said, not bothering to look up from the book. She and Franco started going through the book.
Christian went to sit with Sebastian in the far corner of the office, the two of them speaking in low voices. Vincent thought about intervening. If Christian needed to talk, or wanted comfort, Vincent should be the one to give it to him.
But there were times when you just needed your family. Their trinity was new—maybe too new to handle the situation they’d come up against. Vincent settled in as well, switching his attention between Christian and Charlotte, watching over his partners.
Charlotte and Franco went through the book painstakingly slowly, studying each page, each poem, but after nearly forty minutes of searching, they came up empty.
Franco rubbed his eyes wearily. “The code has to be here.”
“Rip off the binding. Maybe there’s something written on the spine.”
Franco winced at Charlotte’s suggestion. “Rip is such a violent word. This book is very old.”
Charlotte grabbed the volume from him. “It’s also mine.”
Franco grabbed it back.
Devon walked back into the room, and he looked haunted. He stopped, staring at Franco and Charlotte who were playing tug of war with the book. He frowned, then smiled, and some of the haunted look faded.
“Do I want to know what’s going on?” he asked.
Vincent lifted a shoulder. “If I knew, I’d tell you.”
“It’s a cipher.” Charlotte pinched Franco and yanked the book out of his hands. “Ha!”
“That hurt.”
Devon frowned. “A cipher?”
“Yes. These aren’t really poems. They’re bad and weird. But they talk about the sandhogs who built the tunnels, so they must be a cipher about this place!”
Vincent rubbed his head. That didn’t make any damned sense to him, but Franco was nodding.
Devon folded his arms. “The book is the cipher, or the key to the cipher.”
Charlotte and Franco looked at each other. “Uh…”
“All codes have two pieces.” No one said anything. Devon raised his brows. “The message and the method of decoding it. A code means nothing if you don’t also have a key to decode it. You say it’s a cipher—so are the poems the key and we need a message, or are the poems the message and we need to find a key?”
Christian and Sebastian wandered over. Vincent brought them up to speed since Charlotte and Franco both looked like kicked puppies.
“A cipher is usually a set of numbers.” Devon rubbed Franco’s shoulder. “If the book is the key, then it might be page number, line and word. That’s a fairly standard code. It’s relatively common for people to send coded messages that way. Each person has a copy of the same book, and then they send seemingly random lists of numbers back and forth. Unless you know the key, it’s nearly impossible to crack that kind of code.”
“Number. Numbers, numbers, numbers.” Charlotte looked around, her wild hair flying about her head. “Where’s the blueprint?” Despite the late hour, Charlotte was more hopped up than a teenager who’d drunk a six pack of Red Bull.
“Charlotte,” Vincent barked in his Dom voice. “Slow down. Take it easy.”
Charlotte completely ignored him. Vincent growled under his breath and beside him, Christian’s shoulders began to shake. Vincent peered at him, worried, until he realized his partner was trying to suppress a laugh.
Christian caught his eye, and a little bubble of laughter escaped.
“I shouldn’t be laughing,” Christian said, sobering. “I think I killed someone tonight.” Christian looked ill at having said the words and took a moment to compose himself before continuing, “It’s just your face when she ignores you… It’s a combination of astonished, baffled and resigned.”
Vincent hugged him tighter. “At least you obey.”
“Yes, Sir.”
As they spoke, Juliette, Devon, and Sebastian had clustered around the table with Charlotte and Franco. The map was spread out on the table before them. Never comfortable hanging back, Vincent shouldered his way into the huddle.
“Charlotte.” Vincent leaned down and purred into her ear, sliding his hand over her ass. That got her attention. “What are we looking at?”
She leaned into his side, rubbing her cheek on his shoulder for a moment.
“Look at the border of the map. It’s a set of parallel lines. And see, in the space between them, numbers are written. They’re faint, but they’re there.”
“It’s a coordinate grid,” Devon said.
Sebastian shook his head. “If it’s a coordinate grid, it would be numbers along the y-access and letters on the x-access.”
“Like in Battleship,” Vincent said. “A-4, you sank my boat.”
Sebastian did a slow clap. Vincent snorted.
“But look, they’re non-sequential numbers. I thought maybe they were builder’s notes or something like that, but what if this is the cipher?”
Franco whipped out a magnifying glass. Where the hell had he kept that? He peered at the numbers, and then made a strangled noise.
Charlotte yanked the magnifying glass away. “This is it! Holy crap!”
Vincent prayed for patience. “Charlotte, can you use your words to explain what’s happening?”
“There are dots, small ones, but dots. Every three numbers.” She looked to Devon. “You said a set of three numbers?”
“Usually.”
She pointed at the top right corner. “Look here. Twelve, three, eight, and then a dot.”
“So the dots are sectioning the long string of numbers into sets of three.”
“The book of poetry is the key.” Franco jumped in excitement, did a little shimmy that looked more like a seizure than a dance, and bounced back into place at the table. “Faster, woman, faster. Let’s break the code.” He made “hurry up” hand gestures at Charlotte.
Vincent glared at him. “Don’t call her woman.”
Franco looked aggravated. “Another overly protective dominant type? It’s like you pick these guys on purpose.”
Sebastian patted Franco’s shoulder. “We do.”
“Oh. Right.”
“We just have to figure out what the numbers represent,” Sebastian said.
“Here. Write.” Charlotte thrust a pen and a piece of paper at Vincent. She bent over the blueprint, magnifying glass in hand.
Christian snickered, and Vincent glared at him, but when Charlotte started to read out numbers he obediently wrote them down. There were nine sets of three numbers when he was done.
Charlotte snatched the paper from him, then huddled with Franco who had the book.
“Page, line, word.” Franco glanced at the first set of numbers.
“It could be poem, stanza, word,” Juliette pointed out.
“Or poem, word, letter,” Devon added.
“The titles of the poems are numbers. So it might be title, line, word.”
“Or title, stanza, word.”
“The combinations are endless.” Vincent frowned grumpily, as he saw a long night ahead of them. He was the only one who didn’t seem thrilled. The rest of them were busy thinking up combinations.
Vincent’s anger faded when Christian reached out and took his hand, squeezing it gently. “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For not confiding in you about my task.”
Vincent tugged him closer. “I’m not mad, Chris.”
Christian grinned. “No one’s ever called me Chris, Vince.”
“Fair enough, Christian,” Vincent replied, smiling widely. And then, a wave of relief flooded through him as he realized how fortunate they were to be standing there. Not just because of the danger they’d faced down in Charlotte’s apartment, but because of the trinity itself.
He was falling madly in love with Charlotte and Christian.
He kissed Christian. It was quick and hard and full of promise. Then they turned their attention back to Charlotte and Franco.
“We’ll start with page, line, word, Franco.” Charlotte took control, and Vincent had to admit it was damned sexy. “I’ll call out the numbers, you find the word, and I’ll write it down. Page twelve, line three, word eight.”
Franco flipped pages, then announced, “Box.”
Vincent leaned forward as she began to write down words. “The. And. Blue. The. The. Mud. Water. The. Boston. It’s nonsense.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” But it was clear from her disappointment Charlotte couldn’t see any sense to the words either. “Let’s try another combination. Poem, stanza, word.”
Charlotte began reading out the series of numbers again, and Franco echoed back words for Charlotte to write down.
Vincent started to wander away, frustrated with their lack of progress. He stopped when Charlotte whispered, “Oh,” after the third word.
“What is it?” Christian said, moving toward her. He looked at the paper and added his own astonished “wow.”
Everyone gathered closer as the words hit the page. Once they were finished, they had a sentence that made, at least a little, sense.
Lost artist’s genius hides with lions beneath the gargoyle.
“A clue,” Franco whispered reverently.
“I know. This is so cool.” Charlotte grinned. “I want to try one more thing.” She picked up an exacto knife from the desk and carefully trimmed away the leather binding.
Franco made a strangled noise and pretended to faint. At least, Vincent thought it was just pretend. These people were damn strange.
Once she’d picked apart the cover, everyone leaned closer. Even he was caught up in the moment.
“Do you see that?” Charlotte whispered. Then she pumped a fist in the air. “Do. You. See. That?!”
“See what?” Devon asked, moving next to the table.
“There are numbers written on the inside of the leather. But they’re damn hard to read.” Franco snatched the magnifying glass before Charlotte could pick it up. “My turn.” He handed Charlotte a pencil. “Here. Write these down as I call them out.”
Vincent dropped down into an empty chair as they struggled to read yet another series of numbers. It took some time as several of the figures had faded or been rubbed almost completely away.
“Way to go, Annie,” Charlotte cheered, once the list was complete. Again, it was nine three-number sets. There were only three numbers they’d had to guess about. The rest, they believed, were correct.
“Annie?” Devon asked.
“I did research into my family tree right after joining the Trinity Masters. The poet, Annie was married to Charles Follen McKim and William Rutherford Mead, both architects. Charles and William most likely created the labyrinth of tunnels between the library and the church. They’re the ones who drew the map and the blueprint.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were related to Charles McKim when I gave you the blueprint?” Franco asked.
“I kind of thought you knew. It was the Grand Master who told me about my family heritage.”
“The Grand Master?” Juliette asked, clearly confused. “She…didn’t tell any of us that.”
“The old one,” Charlotte clarified. “Not the new one. But Annie created the key to this blueprint cipher. So cool.”
“I can’t stand it. What does it say?” Christian asked.
“Okay, poem, stanza, word. That’s what worked last time.”
This time Charlotte and Franco kept their voices low until they were done.
“What does it say? You’re killing me, Chuck.” Christian leaned toward her, trying to read it upside down.
“Box. Hill. Warden. Cliff. Electricity. Bowery. Bank. New. York.” Charlotte stopped reading.
Vincent patted her shoulder. “This is nonsense. Except maybe the New York part.”
“We need to try a different combination. Page, stanza, word?” Franco asked.
“Not tonight,” Devon declared. “We start again in the morning.”
“But, uh, what do we do next?” Juliette asked.
“We go back to the first clue. Lost artist’s genius hides with lions beneath th
e gargoyle.”
“Who’s the artist?” Vincent asked at the same time Christian said, “We have to find a gargoyle?”
Devon stepped forward. “Give it to me. I…know some people who can help.”
“Well, that’s ominous sounding,” Charlotte commented.
Franco waggled his eyebrows. “You have no idea. But the people at the CIA are well equipped to handle this. Though honestly—lost artist? This is clearly a job for an art historian. Did we already call Jasper?”
Juliette scowled. “For the love of God, Franco. Don’t tell people he works for the CIA. And we’re not calling Jasper.”
“He works for the CIA?” Vincent’s gaze sharpened on Devon. If he had access to the kind of information the CIA had, he’d be able to make incredible investments.
“Oh right.” Franco had the grace to look slightly ashamed.
“He’s a spy? Super cool!” Charlotte jumped a little and Vincent patted her ass.
Devon was at the far end of the table, arms crossed, chin nearly at his chest. The excitement that swirled around and among the rest of them didn’t seem to touch him, as if he wore a cloak of anger. “I’m not a spy. I’m the man who has to sell pieces of his soul to keep the rest of you safe. My hands are dirty so yours are clean.” He turned on his heel and walked out.
Franco looked stricken. “I’m an ass.”
“Yes, you are.” Juliette’s eyes were haunted. “He had to deal with Caden.”
Franco closed his eyes briefly, and then slipped out of the room after Devon.
Charlotte drew back from the table, huddling against Vincent. Christian laid a hand on Vincent’s shoulder.
“Caden is—” Christian started.
“You don’t need to know anything. I’d suggest you never mention that name again, Christian. We’ll make sure you suffer no repercussions.”
Charlotte sighed. “You can’t be sure of that. What about the phone? Caden was on the phone when Christian fired the shot.”
“Devon has it. It cracked when he fell and,” she paused and Vincent could tell she didn’t want to say the next part. Regardless, she forged on. “It was in a pool of blood. At the moment, it’s dead, but Devon thinks he can find a way to extract data from it. It will just take some time.”
