Guilty Secrets (Campus Love and Murder Sorority Eyes Romance Book 1) (17 page)

"Robyn, ask yourself what do all the guests of the Knights of Kimberley have in common?"

"Students. Wealthy families."

"They are all sons and daughters of the most powerful people in the world. Their influence will shape the world we all live in."

"And what you hold over them, makes you the most powerful man in the world?"

"They do my bidding. They steal secrets for me or face ruin."

I nodded my head slowly with a perverse admiration for Khan.

He smiled and stroked my face. "I knew we'd come to an understanding."

I slapped his hand away.

"Khan, you understand nothing about me."

"Robyn this is your last chance to return the journal with all its secrets and save yourself."

"Impossible. Tell me which of the knights is Madison's killer or I'll publish."

His eyes seemed to ignite with fury. "I cannot protect you from the Red Queen. If I do not hand over Madison's journal to her she will insist you never leave here alive."

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT

Two Red Knights pulled back the silk curtains.

The first Knight said, "We've come with orders from the Red Queen."

Khan shrugged.

The Red Knights grabbed my shoulders. They escorted me through a labyrinth of corridors until we arrived on a platform of ice that jutted out high above the ballroom. It extended across the entire length of the ballroom to the far side and formed a long narrow foot bridge about two meters wide.

At the end of the platform and suspended from the ceiling by a gold rope was an ornate bird cage composed of thick vertical gold bars. It seemed big enough for a human.

They marched me to the cage and shoved me inside. The first knight turned a key from which dangled a thin chain. The door locked with me inside. He removed the key.

As the Red Queen appeared at the entrance to the platform, the first knight bowed and presented her with the chain key.

The Queen placed the key chain around her neck. She waved her hand and the orchestra stopped playing at once.

The first knight bellowed out to the guests.

"All hail the Red Queen."

Everyone on the dance floor chorused, "All hail the Red Queen."

The Red Queen stepped forward and looked down on her court.

"The prize is the life of a traitor,” she said.

She waved a dismissive hand at me.

Everyone looked up. I half expected someone to call for my release. But all I heard was hissing vitriol from the ballroom floor.

The Queen smiled. "Step forward my champion."

A Red knight stepped out of the corridor and joined his queen at her side. He wore a three quarters mask that revealed a thin crescent moon scar below one eye. There was no mistaking Jason Drake.

As he turned to me, he smiled.

The crowd applauded.

The Queen nodded as he kissed her emerald ring.

The White King joined the Red Queen and shouted to the court, "Is there anyone who will fight for the honor of the traitor?"

I glanced down at the masks in the crowd as they looked up at me. Some masks were twisted into insane expressions of manic laughter. Other masks were contorted into cries of agony. Most were simply passive, solemn, lifeless masks with furtive eyes.

Many turned away and looked at their feet. My stomach back flipped. This playful fantasy was about to take a deadly turn to reality.

CHAPTER FORTY NINE

"I will champion the girl."

Everyone in the ballroom turned to look at the masked man standing at the far entrance of the aerial platform. He wore the blue crushed velvet of an usher. A mask with a single tear under one eye.

With one hand I stifled my gasp of surprise, "Harry."

He strode across the bridge and met Jason in the center. They both drew swords. Suddenly I realized the platform was no bridge. It a fencing piste. This was a duel between a champion swordsman and a fencer who failed to make the team.

The White King approached the bars of my cage.

"I'm sorry it's come to this."

He leaned in and stroked my face as he dropped something down the front of my dress.

He whispered, "If your champion wins and you go free, he will need it."

He turned his back on me and shouted, "Open up traitors' chasm."

The cage jolted and began to rise. I turned away from them. I reached inside the top of my dress and found a tiny glass vial containing a green liquid. I had no idea what he meant, but hid the vial inside my bra.

I looked down as the ballroom floor began to divide in half. People ran back to the edges of the ballroom. The two halves of the ice floor moved apart and revealed a deep trench filled with giant stalagmites of razor sharp ice.

The cage swung out to the center, swaying back and forth, suspended some hundred feet in the air. I hovered level with the piste, but directly over the trench. The rope suspending the cage was looped through a hoop in the ceiling and then traversed down to a winch.

The Red Queen took a candle and placed it beneath the rope. The flame licked the rope. She smiled up at me and addressed Harry and Jason.

"This is a duel to the death. The traitor's champion must win before the cage rope burns through."

Red Knights took up positions on either end of the piste.

"Any man who steps off the piste will be immediately executed."

She raised a red silk handkerchief above her head so that it fluttered in the breeze.

She shouted, "En garde."

Harry and Jason saluted with their swords and raised them in readiness.

They watched the red handkerchief take flight in the breeze.

Jason leapt at Harry and slashed his blade down on Harry's mask.

CHAPTER FIFTY

Harry fell to his knees. One hand flew to a cut on his chin. He glanced up as Jason brought his blade crashing down once again.

This time, he raised his own sword and parried Jason. His counter attack was fast and decisive, as the tip of his blade drew blood from Jason's shoulder.

Now that they had the measure of each other, they fought cautiously. Circling each other, feinting attacks, countering, trying to draw each other's attack for a quick and deadly counter.

As they moved, Harry seemed more sluggish than the nimble Jason who scored a few minor cuts to Harry's arms and legs.

I took stock of the burning candle just as the cage dropped through the air by some ten feet.

I screamed.

Harry looked down at me just as Jason raised his sword above his head and slashed at Harry's face.

Harry dropped to the piste and rolled across the piste. Jason missed his target and let out a raging scream. Harry winked at me. But I could tell he was hurting.

He moved slower than before, dragging one lifeless leg around in a circle. Then he stumbled and fell to his knees. This time when he looked at me, he didn't smile or wink. His eyes glazed over and he tumbled onto his back.

Jason stood over Harry and placed a boot on his chest. Harry's one good arm flailed about trying to dislodge Jason's boot, but to no avail.

Jason looked to the Red Queen as if seeking permission.

She raised her fist as she seemed to measure the mood of the crowd.

They were baying for blood. It didn't seem to matter whose.

She smiled and stuck out a thumb. Pointing it downward.

Jason smiled with dead eyes and raised his sword above his head.

It was then I realized everything I'd endured had been for nothing. The deaths of Madison, J.C, Penny and now Harry. Soon it would be my turn. In failing to end the mystery of guilty secrets how many more would end up like Harry and I?

Jason brought the blade crashing down and shards of ice by Harry's head exploded upwards and outward.

It was over. I felt my soul scream with silent agony as my hands pathetically tore at the gold bars of my cage.

Jason's expression changed to something of irritation and confusion. A trickle of blood ran from his nostrils. Another flowed from his lips. He looked down at his chest and grabbed at his stomach. His arms swung wildly from his body as he gripped a bloody blade and pulled it from his stomach.

He collapsed onto his knees. He shot me a raging look of contempt that seemed to dissolve into a plea for forgiveness. He fell flat onto Harry's body.

It somehow seemed fitting that those on all sides of this conflict would die. I sat in the cage accepting the peaceful surrender to my own imminent death. My head sunk into my trembling hands.

The cage shook, but did not drop. I looked up from my hands as a second tremor rocked the entire ice cavern.

I heard a scream.

Jason's body rolled off Harry's body and tumbled off the piste. Jason plunged into traitor's chasm.

I couldn't look at his skewered body and as I looked away I thought I was looking at a ghost. I rested my eyes on a lower level of ice shelves. Even if I could escape the cage, and jumped, I wouldn't make it to safety.

Harry sat up. He looked at me and winked.

My eyes flooded with tears as I screamed out, "Harry."

He struggled to stand. He pulled his sword from Jason's grip and staggered towards the Red Queen.

Two Red Knights stepped forward. The ice cavern shook violently. The two knights fell from the piste and plunged down onto the crowd.

Harry grabbed the Red Queen by her long hair and pulled the chain key from her neck. The cage dropped twenty feet. A few seconds later Harry leapt from the piste and grabbed at the gold bars of my cage.

The key dangled from the chain between his teeth.

I grabbed the chain from his mouth and unlocked the door.

He shouted, "Climb out here and help me swing it."

"Are you crazy?"

He indicated a balcony below us. "It's our only chance."

He swung his body back and forth, forcing momentum from the cage as if it were a pendulum swinging back and forth.

"We got one shot before the rope burns through."

I screamed, "Shut up and kiss me."

"Anyone ever mention your timing is lousy?"

As the cage swung out wildly, the rope snapped.

Harry lost his grip. He fell backwards. I reached out for him.

But too late.

CHAPTER FIFTY ONE

I woke up with Brad standing over me and slapping my face.

I pushed his hands away. "Where's Harry?"

Brad moved out of the way. Harry was lying on the balcony with his head in Mai's lap. She was stroking his brow.

I fought a pang of jealousy and struggled to my feet.

Over the noise of explosions and blocks of ice collapsing from the ceiling, Brad shouted, "I set off a chain reaction with the ice regulators."

"You probably saved my life earlier."

Brad shrugged. "Only to get us all killed."

He helped Harry to his feet. "Follow me."

Brad led us down the spiral ice steps to the ballroom floor. There, people ran screaming for cover as blocks fell from the ceiling and smashed holes through the dance floor.

We made it outside to the bridge. Another seismic quake rocked the bridge. The far end collapsed into the lake, leaving a gap of some two hundred feet.

Harry grabbed me, "Can you swim?"

I nodded and we all jumped onto the icy surface of Lake Kimberley.

Harry shouted, "Walk slow. If you go under, no one can save you."

On our hands and knees we carefully crossed the ice until we reached the old wooden jetty.

I heard a whistling noise from above. I turned to the sky as a large block of ice from the palace flew across the sky. It began to plummet towards us. I rolled aside as the block crashed into the ice just before the jetty, causing a man-size hole with serrated edges.

The ice surface of the lake buckled and swayed wildly from side to side.

I lost my balance. I fell forward into the hole. My face hit the water and instantly the breath in my body exploded out of me.

I felt someone grab my ankles and drag be away from the edge.

I turned to see Harry holding my ankles.

"It's OK, Harry, I can actually swim."

"Under the ice you won't survive more than a minute, Robyn."

"I guess that's two I you."

"I guess it is."

As we climbed onto the jetty we stood a while and watched the Ice Palace erupt into flames. More blocks of ice pummeled the frozen lake.

I sighed. “After all that, I never did find the identity of Madison's killer."

Mai stroked my arm. "Maybe her killer died tonight."

"Jason?"

She shrugged. "Or one of the other Red Knights."

I asked, "How many died do you think?"

No one answered.

I turned to Harry. "Harry, I need to apologize."

Harry leaned heavily on me and then collapsed to his knees.

He rolled onto his back and began to have a fit as if he were epileptic. He began foaming at the mouth.

I screamed, "Harry? What's happening?"

Brad shook his head. "Jason Drake's revenge from the grave."

"What?"

"He dips the tip of his sword in a slow acting poison."

"Is he going to die?"

Brad avoided my eyes. "Drake kept the antidote on him. Now it’s at the bottom of the lake."

I pulled Harry into my arms and tried to soothe his shaking body.

He fixed me with his frightened stare and stuttered, "I'm sorry, Rob."

"No, no, there's nothing to be sorry for, Harry."

"Yes, yes, there is. I am the one who..."

His eyes rolled back into his head and his chest arced so high I was afraid he'd snap his spine. Suddenly his body relaxed.

I gasped, "He's OK. He's beaten the poison."

Brad shook his head.

"Harry's gone."

I slapped Harry's face. "Harry, wake up!"

He remained deathly still.

"Harry! Please wake up. I'm begging you."

I flung myself at Harry and shook his body.

"Wake up. Damn you, you can't do this to me, now."

I felt Brad's firm hands on my shoulders.

"It's too late, Robyn. Let him go."

My shaking hands clenched into fists. I flung Brad's hands off me.

"It can't be too late. I never got a chance to tell him."