Threshold of Destiny (The Mysterium Secret Book 1)

by Linn Chapel

  As they entered the building, Holt grated in an undertone, “Something is wrong with me. I haven’t dropped anything in two hundred years.”

  “It’s got to be the fever,” Peter whispered back. “Try not to worry about it.”

  By the time they had climbed the stairs to Tressa’s door, Holt’s unhappy look had faded. With a glint in his eyes, he bowed low. Waving Peter forward to the door, he said, “It’s your turn.”

  Peter shot him a wry grin. He stepped forward and was about to unlock the door when his attention was caught by something underfoot.

  On the floor, like a pinch of fine, gray salt, lay a pile of metal filings. Raising his eyes quickly to the bolt, Peter spied a fresh cut in the metal.

  He grabbed Holt’s arm and pointed to the pile of filings.

  Holt’s eyes darted upwards to the bolt. Then he turned his head to listen closely. After a few moments, he led Peter toward the stairwell.

  “Someone’s inside, opening and closing drawers,” he whispered.

  Peter tensed, feeling outraged by the intrusion. “He’s probably going through her papers and things, trying to find some clue to our whereabouts.”

  Holt eyed him with concern. “Would Tressa have any directions lying about?”

  “No. She’s been to Michael’s summer house once before, but I did all of the driving. We could take a chance and enter, but whoever’s inside could have an Operation tranq gun.”

  “We’ll wait. I’ll disable him when he comes to the stairs.”

  Peter shook his head. “We’d only give ourselves away. He’d wake up before long and realize that we couldn’t be very far away.”

  “Then we’ll simply allow him to leave,” Holt said in an undertone. “We’ll wait at a café across the street.”

  They exited the building and crossed the street to the café where they found a table by the window. Peter ate his way mechanically through a plate of pastries, barely tasting them as he gazed out the window at Tressa’s building. The minutes slowly passed.

  He glanced over at Holt. “I’ll order you a drink while we’re waiting. Hot tea, this time.”

  Holt shook his head, looking wan. “I can smell what they’re brewing in the kitchen and it horrifies me.”

  “You should ask Tressa to make you a cup of tea just the way you want,” said Peter without thinking. “She’s handy in the kitchen.”

  At Tressa’s name, Holt stiffened and a brooding look swept over his face. “The less time I spend with her, the better, Peter.” His eyes suddenly darted to the window. “Look! There’s our man. He’s leaving now.”

  A burly man in a hooded jacket was emerging from the entrance of Tressa’s building. Peter couldn’t make out the man’s face within the heavy hood, but nothing about him seemed familiar from the Operation. He had to be one of the thugs from the mountain resort.

  After the man had disappeared down the street, Peter gave Holt a nod. Together they crossed the street and soon they were inside the building and approaching Tressa’s door for the second time. The door was still closed, but the pile of filings had been smudged by a passing footstep.

  Holt turned his head to listen for a long moment, and then he nodded and swung the door open.

  Suddenly, another man in a hooded sweatshirt appeared from behind the door to confront Holt with the end of a silver barrel. A dart hissed.

  It was then that Peter knew there’d been a pair of men working together. They must have been leaving the scene one at a time – a standard undercover move. Peter blamed himself for missing it.

  Holt’s shoulders sagged. The hooded intruder hastened the inevitable by slamming his metal barrel against the side of Holt’s head.

  Holt’s body dropped like a stone to the floor and Peter heard the hiss of a second dart. He dodged it by feinting to the left, but he knew it was only a matter of time before he was hit.

  Holt had seemed out for the count, but one of his hands was still moving. It gripped the ankle of the hooded man and pulled. The intruder stumbled sideways.

  Peter lost no time in vaulting over Holt’s body and reaching for the hooded man’s silver tranq gun. His adversary kept a wide, two-handed grip on it, but Peter brought up his right knee in a martial arts maneuver, hitting the barrel sharply in the middle. The impact was powerful enough to break the other man’s hold and Peter grabbed the gun as it flew into the air.

  Quickly he shimmied backwards, found the trigger on the gun, and shot the man in the chest. The fellow must have known he was done for, because he didn’t try very hard to reach Peter before slumping onto the floor.

  Peter dragged in long breath. He’d have a look at Holt’s head injury now, and try to rouse him.

  But Peter had only taken the first step toward Holt’s body when rapid footfalls sounded out in the hallway. He ducked behind the sofa and steadied the tranq gun on the backrest, and a moment later another hooded figure appeared in the doorway, the same thug who had just left the building. No doubt he’d smelled trouble when his partner had not showed up.

  Peter activated the trigger again.

  The second man didn’t succumb to the tranquilizer as easily as the first. He stepped over Holt’s body and shot a volley of darts at Peter.

  Ducking behind the sofa, Peter crawled as fast as he could into the bedroom. The man must have used up all his darts, because he tossed the tranq gun aside with a noisy clatter and plowed forward.

  Peter almost had the bedroom door shut when the other man wedged a large foot in the crack. Taller and stockier than Peter, the hooded man slowly forced the door open. Giving the door a final shove, he rushed in. Then his meaty hands were squeezing Peter’s throat, pushing him down on the floor until he was flat on his back, choking for his next breath.

  Peter’s vision started to go dark. Suddenly, the cruel hands loosened their grip. Rolling quickly out of the way, Peter came to a crouch on his hands and knees, gasping as he breathed in sweet air. An instant later, the heavy body of his attacker crashed onto the carpet next to him.

  Peter rubbed at his sore neck, thankful that the dart had worked in time. Had the hired thug meant to kill him and remove his body later, under the cover of darkness? He didn’t know, but he thought it likely. If the hidden agenda within the Operation was anything like what he and Luke suspected, Peter was slated for elimination, sooner or later, and sooner would probably have suited Ted and Margot just fine.

  Leaving the bedroom, he crossed the living room to the door. Hastily he dragged Holt’s body out of the open doorway and peered up and down the hall. It was empty of witnesses, to his relief.

  Closing the apartment door, he knelt to examine Holt more closely. Blood was oozing from a wound on the side of his head, near the hairline. When Holt awoke, he’d have a pounding headache. He’d also be in a foul mood, Peter was sure. If dropping a key had rattled him, then being struck down by a human attacker was going to make him really upset.

  To ensure that the intruders stayed under, Peter rose and shot each of them again with one of the tranq guns. Then he applied himself to rousing Holt by rubbing his limp hands and then propping him up against the wall.

  At last, Holt shook his head in a befuddled way. His eyes opened.

  Seeing the body of the hooded man on the floor nearby, Holt tried to rise to his feet, but Peter quickly told him about the additional darts. “We’ll leave as soon as I find Tressa’s passport.”

  Holt nodded. He finally struggled to his feet with Peter’s aid. “I wasn’t fast enough,” he muttered grimly.

  “Chalk it up to the fever, again. How does your head feel?”

  Holt gave a bark of laughter. “Cloven in two. And the tranquilizer hasn’t worn off, yet. But don’t worry about me. Just look for Tressa’s passport.” He leaned weakly against the wall as he waited.

  Peter rummaged through Tressa’s desk drawer, found her passport, and zipped it into a pocket inside his jacket.

  “Bring the tranquilizer guns, too,” called out Holt. “
They might prove useful.”

  Peter retrieved the guns from the floor. He concealed them inside an extra-large grocery bag he found in Tressa’s kitchen, and then he helped Holt to make his way out of the apartment. Peter kept an arm around his shoulders for support until they reached the car.

  As Peter pulled away from the curb, he shot Holt a remorseful look. “I should have guessed there’d be a second man in Tressa’s place. The two men probably entered one by one, and were trying to leave the same way, to avoid suspicion. When the second man didn’t appear, the first must have gotten nervous.”

  “We must hope they’ll never realize why we came to town.”

  Glancing sideways, Peter saw that Holt’s eyes were closed. His face was tight with pain.

  “Try to sleep,” he told Holt.

  Peter felt surprisingly good himself, if he didn’t count the ring of bruises that were making his neck ache. He was no stranger to tricky situations and bodily danger because of his missions with Operation M, but he’d never had to engage in any combat in the course of his activities. Fighting off the two attackers in Tressa’s apartment had left him with a feeling akin to runner’s high.

  Now that they were safely on the road, his only problem was his rumbling stomach, but he’d fix that soon enough with some take-out food. If only his problems with Operation M could be solved as easily.

  A few hours later, Peter swung the car around the last bend in the dark, tree-lined highway and pulled into the driveway of Michael’s getaway on the coast. Luke’s car was present in the drive, parked near the walkway to the white farmhouse, and Peter knew that his brother’s trip had gone according to schedule.

  Peter turned to Holt and shook him awake. “How do you feel? You’ve been sleeping the whole way.”

  Holt straightened in his seat with an effort. “Passable. Let me walk inside on my own. Tressa mustn’t see me leaning on you.”

  Peter chuckled. “She’ll notice that you’re injured the moment she sees you. There’s some blood and a lot of swelling on the side of your forehead. But be brave – Tressa’s only half your size, after all.”

  Holt murmured something inaudible under his breath as he stepped from the car, but he was steady enough on his feet to walk to the front door on his own, Peter saw with relief. Shouldering their gear, he followed.

  At the door, Holt hung back and motioned Peter inside first. With a cry of welcome, Tressa rushed forward, followed by Luke.

  “Peter, what happened to you?” she asked sharply. “How did you get those bruises on your neck?”

  Peter reached up to finger his neck where one of the thugs had tried to choke him. “I’m alright, Tressa. We had a couple of surprises when we got to your place, but we dealt with them.”

  Tressa’s gaze suddenly shifted to Holt, who was quietly climbing the stairs with his head turned aside to hide his wound.

  “Holt! What’s wrong?” Tressa called out to him. She followed him up the stairs.

  Peter could hear the sound of running water in the bathroom upstairs. Then Tressa’s voice rose in dismay.

  Holt’s voice rumbled next. “Tressa, it’s nothing!”

  Tressa came down the stairs in a rush. “Holt won’t tell me anything. You’ll have to fill me in, Peter,” she said a bit fiercely.

  Peter gave only a brief account, making light of the events at Tressa’s apartment. When he was finished, he put a James Bond look on his face as he pulled one of the tranq guns from the tote bag and pretended to shoot at a light fixture on the ceiling.

  Luke was entertained by his antics and gave him a cuff on the shoulder. “So, you played the tough guy today? Nice work!”

  But Tressa wasn’t laughing. Her face had become very pale. “Holt looks terrible,” she said.

  Footsteps were heard above and Luke turned to gaze apprehensively up at Holt, who was descending the stairs with a small towel held to his head.

  Peter made the introductions. “Holt, this is my brother Luke.”

  “Hi.” Luke shifted uneasily from one foot to the other.

  Luke had never been near a vampire before, Peter knew, let alone a vampire undergoing the symptoms of a transition. Of course, Luke’s best friend Albert had once been a vampire, but Albert’s transition had been over weeks before Luke had met him.

  Holt, on the other hand, seemed to feel perfectly at ease with Luke, even with a towel held to his forehead. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Luke.”

  Tressa interrupted. “Come into the kitchen where the light is brighter, Holt, so that I can look at your wound,” she instructed him in a tight voice.

  Holt narrowed his eyes. “Stop fussing, Tressa.”

  Tressa reached for his towel. “You’re getting blood all over that.” She tugged the towel out of his hand and pulled him toward the brighter lights in the kitchen.

  Luke turned to Peter and said in an undertone, “We’re going to stay in some old place in the wilds of England with him? And what about his transition? Please tell me it’s almost over, Peter.”

  “He’s halfway through it. There’s another a week to go.”

  Luke glanced nervously in the direction of the kitchen. “A week? But Peter, even when he’s human again, he might be trouble. He looks like a hit man for the mafia!”

  Peter gave Luke’s shoulder a little shake. “You’re letting your imagination run away with you. Holt’s had a lot of experience on the streets, that’s all. I don’t think he’ll be a danger to us. And he’s got principles. You’ll see.”

  “Principles are one thing, but what about his old predatory instincts?”

  Peter piled all of the gear from the trip at the foot of the stairs. “Look, there’s no way we’re going to be able to part the two of them. They’ve had some sort of argument, but in spite of that, Holt must have decided that she’ll be safer at his estate in England. It’s obvious that Tressa is the real reason that he’s going to so much trouble to help us.” He nodded in the direction of the kitchen to prove his point.

  Holt was sitting on a kitchen stool as Tressa examined his wound. By the muffled sound of their voices it was clear that they were arguing, but hints of something vastly different from discord showed on their faces.

  Luke whispered, “Good Lord!” under his breath. He looked over at Peter, dismayed. “This is going to make things a lot more complicated.”

  “You’re right. But there’s nothing I can do about it. I’ve tried.”

  Luke crossed his arms and eyed the pair with determination. “Let me reason with her, Peter.”

  Peter laughed and shook his head. “It wouldn’t do any good.” He gave a philosophical shrug. “With a little more time, they’ll find out for themselves that it could never work.”

  Twenty

  In the kitchen, Tressa was fast losing patience with Holt. “If you have a concussion, the pressure changes in the airplane could make it worse.”

  Holt crossed his arms over his chest. “This medical exam of yours isn’t necessary.”

  “Hold still. You can entertain yourself by thinking up as many words as you can that mean the same thing as ‘troublesome’.” Tressa leaned near him as he sat on the kitchen stool, fidgeting. She tried once more to get a closer look at his wound.

  Holt frowned at her, but his eyes were glinting. “Irascible, unconscionable…”

  Tressa tested his grip, which interrupted Holt’s recital and brought forth a string of complaints, instead. Then she examined his pupils by passing a hand in front of his face. That test irritated him just as much as the first had. She asked him questions, too, but he answered them all evasively.

  Holt seemed to be lucid and free of concussion, but still, something was different, and it made her uneasy.

  Just then, Peter and Luke entered the kitchen looking very hungry. She gave Holt one last, worried look before stepping away to find a set of dinner plates in the cupboard. Meanwhile, Peter made a beeline for the stove, where he tasted the soup Tressa had been simmering tha
t afternoon. Luke hovered by the counter, bending over a platter of freshly baked rolls.

  Hoping that Holt would eat something at last, she turned to encourage him, only to find that he had already left the kitchen. Through the passageway she could see him sitting on the living room sofa, staring moodily off into space.

  Peter had spotted Holt there, too, and soon joined him with some bottles of beer. Holt accepted a bottle from Peter and drank, and then they spoke for a few minutes before Peter returned to the kitchen.

  So, they’ve become friends after all!

  The realization made Tressa feel even worse. Why should Holt be so much at ease with Peter, and not with her?

  Later that night, Peter started a fire in the living room hearth, and soon the evening chill had been chased away. As Peter came to sit next to Holt on the sofa, Tressa took a seat in the armchair near Luke.

  A look of growing alarm appeared in Luke’s thoughtful, dark eyes as Peter gave him an account of the most recent developments. When Peter came at last to the part about leaving the country for England the next morning, Luke sat up and ran an agitated hand through his hair.

  “Tomorrow! But I can’t leave my research so soon! I’m in the middle of something big!”

  Peter’s voice was firm. “You’ve got to come, Luke. Everyone at the Operation knows that you were the one who convinced Michael to perform the initial experiments. They also know that you drafted the Handbook.”

  Luke frowned unhappily. “You never mentioned the others, did you?

  Peter replied calmly, “No one knows about the rest of the family or where they live, except for Michael – and Holt. But I think we can count on Holt’s silence.”

  Holt was staring expressionlessly at the flames in the hearth. “I’ll tell no one.”

  “But why would someone want to get rid of us in the first place?” asked Tressa, struggling to understand.

  Peter and Luke exchanged a long look. Then Peter turned to her. “There’s not enough time to talk about that tonight. And it’s still guesswork, anyway. We should all get a few hours of sleep now, because we’ll be leaving for the airport around six o’clock in the morning. But before we go to bed, we’ll have Luke scan our bags.”