The Inquisitor's Mark (17 page)

DORIAN THOUGHT HE MIGHT
snap if he had to endure close quarters with Billy Ramirez much longer. In between complaining that the eighth day wasn't as much fun as he'd thought it would be, Billy had spent the bulk of the day pawing through every drawer in Dorian's room, rummaging in his closet, and peering under the beds. “What are you looking for?” Dorian demanded.

“Resources,” Billy replied.

They were under house arrest, locked into Dorian's bedroom in disgrace.

That morning, Dorian had been required to present himself to his father and “explain his actions.” The command was followed so quickly by an angry tirade, Dorian never had a chance to explain anything. Dad finished up by telling Dorian how lucky they were that Aunt Ursula wasn't angrier with him.

“Because she would've changed my memory?” Dorian asked.

“Dorian, we don't—” Dad amended his words. “We don't
usually
use the Dulac talent on family. In Jax's case, it was unfortunate, but necessary.”

“Dad, I can't figure something out.” Dorian paused and then, thinking about Jax and how brave he'd been, took the plunge. “Do you
really
not know what happened to Uncle Rayne?”

Dad's face turned beet red. “How would you know anything about Rayne?”

Dorian said nothing, already regretting the question.

“What do you know about my brother?” Dad's voice reverberated with magic. Dorian swayed in surprise. It took a supreme effort of will to keep his mouth shut. Dad reached for his honor blade.
“What do you know about Rayne—and how?”

“Aunt Ursula made him do something terrible, then changed his memory. I read it in a journal I found in Gran and Gramps's apartment.” Dorian blinked against the sting of tears. His father had
interrogated
him.

Next Dad had marched Dorian into the bedroom, giving him no choice but to hand over the journal. If he hadn't, Dad would have unleashed his magic again, and Dorian couldn't bear the humiliation, especially in front of the very curious Billy. The color drained from Dad's face when he saw Rayne's message on the last page of the journal, and he left the room without another word, locking the boys in behind him.

Mom let them out for lunch and a bathroom visit. Lesley
refused to look at Dorian, which he thought was stinky considering how many times he'd stuck his neck out for her. Billy tried to ingratiate himself with Mom by helping her set the table, although that didn't prevent her from locking him back up with Dorian afterward. Lesley, too, was locked into her room, even though she protested she hadn't done anything.

Hours passed. They didn't see Jax all day, and Dorian was left to imagine all the terrible things Aunt Ursula and Dad might be making him do. Billy searched Dorian's bedroom for “resources” while Dorian gritted his teeth and tried not to lose it. “Aren't there any brownie holes in
your
apartment?” Billy bugged him.

“Dad remodeled any room where he found one, which destroys them. Once people could pass through them, he didn't like having them in our home.” Aunt Ursula had done the same thing, although Dorian happened to know she'd missed one in a room she never used. Too bad they weren't locked in the penthouse instead of here.

When Billy finally gave up searching and settled into his bunk to read, Dorian sighed. Not with relief. With resignation.
It's out of my hands now. They got Jax, just like they got my father and my mother and everybody else in this clan. Just like they'll get me, eventually
.

Late in the afternoon, Mom knocked at the door. “Dorian? Albert Ganner needs me to treat an injured man, and your father is . . .”

She paused, as if trying to decide between the truth and
something more acceptable. “With Jax?” Dorian asked.

“Dealing with a situation for Aunt Ursula,” his mother finished vaguely. “You three are going to stay here. I'll be back as soon as I can.” Dorian didn't bother answering.

She'd only been gone about five minutes when Billy sat up with a grin. “It's about time. I was beginning to think we'd never get out of here!”

“Think again,” Dorian said dully. “The door's still locked.”

Billy rolled off the bottom bunk, threw up the bed skirt, and hauled out a box that rattled and clanked. “Did you forget about this?” The box held a fire ladder. A five-story fire ladder.

Several years back, his mom had gone on a safety kick, bugging Dad about the elevator key and the one stairwell. “What if the stairs are blocked? What if our children end up trapped in a fire?” To satisfy her, Dad bought a collapsible ladder for every bedroom. Dorian hadn't exactly forgotten about it, but he didn't see how it could help them. “If we climb out the window, someone will see us!”

“Plus we'll be on the outside of the building, which won't help Addie.” Then Billy grinned. “What do you do with your trash?”

Dorian's mouth fell open. “There's a chute, but—”

“Just like in
Star Wars
! They rescued a damsel in distress too.”

“And almost got crushed by a trash compactor.”

That gave Billy a moment's pause. “Does this building have a compactor?”

“Yes!” Dorian said firmly. Then it was his turn to pause. “But . . . it won't be working today. They turn off a lot of stuff on the eighth day to conserve power.” Billy's grin returned. “We're still locked in the room, though,” Dorian reminded him.

Billy hiked up his shirt, revealing a screwdriver tucked into the waistband of his pants.

“Where'd you get that?”

Billy knelt by the door. “From a drawer in your kitchen.”

No wonder he'd been so helpful at lunch! “Are you going to pick the lock?”

“Not exactly.” Billy inserted the screwdriver into the head of one of the screws that bolted the entire metal plate with the handle and the locking mechanism to the wooden door.

Dorian felt really, really dumb.

Billy reassembled the outside door plate, so it would look intact at first glance. “There were flashlights in that drawer too,” said Billy. “Go get 'em.”

“Flashlights?”

“Do you have lights in the garbage chute?” Dorian dashed off to the kitchen. When he returned, Billy was talking to Lesley through the keyhole in her door. “I can get you out.”

“Go away,” Lesley hissed.

“Les,” Dorian said. “I'm sorry you got in trouble too. Maybe you should come.”

“Leave me out of this, Dorian. You're the son and the heir and the one with the talent. No matter how mad they get, they're not going to mess with you too bad.”

He hesitated, feeling guilty and protective, but Billy nudged him on. They lugged the ladder out of the apartment and to the garbage chute at the end of the corridor. Billy pulled down the door, and Dorian wedged the ladder in, hooking the top of it to the door and unrolling the rest. It clattered its way down the dark chute.

“The door will close if no one's holding it,” Dorian pointed out.

Billy shut the door and tested the hooks. “I think we're good.” He opened the chute again, clambered onto the door, and started backing down. “This is so cool.”

Dorian followed, his heart pounding. The instant his weight was off the door, it began to close. “Hang on!” he shouted. For one stomach-dropping second the ladder was falling; then it jerked to a halt when the hooks caught in the door. Dorian clung tightly to the rungs. “You okay?” he called.

Billy almost blinded Dorian, shining his flashlight at him from below. “Yeah, I was expecting that.”

Of course you were
. Dorian had seriously underestimated Jax's friend.

Dorian kept his elbows tucked against his sides as he backed down. The chute was barely the width of the ladder.
And it smelled. Rank and nasty.

“Dorian,” Billy called. “We got a problem.” Dorian looked between his feet. Billy was shining the flashlight down the chute. “The ladder's too short.”

“It can't be,” said Dorian. “It's a five-story ladder. Dad tested it.”

“Yeah, but we're going to the basement.” Billy leaned back enough for Dorian to see the ladder dangling several feet above a mound of garbage bags. How many feet? In the dark and from this angle, Dorian couldn't tell.

“Oh well,” said Billy. “Geronimo.”

Geronimo?
“No, don't!” exclaimed Dorian. He pointed his flashlight down, but the ladder beneath him was empty. A scream echoed up through the chute. “Billy!”

“I'm okay!” Billy yelled. Then he moaned. “Banged my arm on the way down. Gosh, I wish your mom were here.”

Dorian balanced on the bottom rung. “I'll come down to help, but I'm afraid I'll land on you.” His light finally caught Billy in its beam, curled in a ball and half buried in trash bags.

“Let me get out of the way.” Billy rolled like a toddler in a disgusting version of a ball pit.

“Are you insanely brave or just plain crazy?” Dorian called down.

“Is there a difference?” Billy shot back. “Okay. Clear.”

Dorian gulped, then jumped. The garbage cushioned his landing, but not completely. Sharp objects jabbed him. Bags broke beneath him, squishing messily into his fingers and hair.
Guided by Billy's flashlight, he wriggled out of the garbage bin, onto the concrete floor, and shuddered like a dog, trying to throw off the ick.

Billy cast his light around the room, holding his injured arm close to his side. “Is that the outside door?” He illuminated a large, roll-up door that was padlocked closed.

“Yeah, and that one goes to the rest of the basement.” Dorian shone his light on the opposite wall.

“Is that how we're getting out?”

“Not unless we want to run into the guards.”

“So what's your plan?”

My plan? You got us down here, and now it's my plan?
But Dorian realized he did have a plan. “Still got that screwdriver?” Billy handed it over. “Okay,” said Dorian. “Brownies might be smarter than rats, but they love trash just as much. If there's not a brownie hole in this room somewhere, I'll eat a bag of garbage.”

“You can get out that way, but what about me?”

“You, Mr. Resourceful, are going to find a way to bust that padlock loose. And I'm finally going to make the brownie holes take me where I want to go. I'll get myself into the room where they've got Addie locked up.” Dorian held up the screwdriver. “And then we'll see if they've got the same kind of door locks down here.”

DORIAN SEARCHED FOR MANY
fruitless minutes and eventually had to climb back into the garbage bin before he found what he was looking for: a puckered opening in the air above the trash. “It figures,” he said. “They probably dive in like it's a swimming pool. Wish me luck.”

Billy had found a copper pipe joiner and was trying to bust the lock. “Luck.”

Dorian pushed into the brownie hole and ended up standing in midair above the trash bin. Outside of time, Billy was no longer visible. Dorian felt the tingle of magical potential and drew it into himself like a lungful of air. This tunnel didn't connect with the other one in the basement. But he had to believe it could take him there.
If brownies can do it, I can do it
.

He visualized the location of the room that held the Emrys girl.
I want to go to that prison cell. The room with the girl
. In his previous attempts to move through space, Dorian
had willed the tunnel to extend itself. But if Billy was right and shifting location was like hyperspeed, it wasn't the tunnel that needed to move; it was Dorian. The tunnels were similar to airplane runways, used only for traveling short distances.

Dorian imagined a ship hurtling through space and vanishing in a blur of stars.
I'm going to the room with the Emrys girl. The room. The girl. The prisoner
. He started moving forward, walking at first, then breaking into a run, wobbling crazily on the uneven, squishy surface. Suddenly the fabric of the tunnel burst open like a torn grocery bag, and Dorian tumbled into a tiny, dimly lit storage room—startling the heck out of the guy who was in there.

He was bent into a
W
on the floor, bound with his hands behind his back. Dorian had caught him in the act of trying to force his hands past his rear end so he could get them around his legs, which were also tightly tied. Perhaps he would've succeeded if his leather biker jacket hadn't been so bulky. When the guy stared up at Dorian through disheveled reddish-brown hair, Dorian saw that he was also gagged.

Biker jacket. And gagged
. “You gotta be Pendragon.” Dorian reached for his dagger. When the guy squirmed away from him, he said, “No, it's okay. I'm going to cut you loose.”

The honor blade wasn't as sharp as it could've been, but he'd never used it to
cut
anything before. The prisoner's hands finally came free, and Dorian would've cut the gag off next, but the guy ripped it off himself. Spitting out whatever they'd wadded up inside his mouth, he said in a hoarse voice, “Give
me your blade and stand against the far wall.”

No thanks,
Dorian wanted to say. Instead, he passed over his dagger and plastered himself against the wall.

Okay, that was a handy talent to have, and it pretty much confirmed the guy's identity.

Pendragon glanced at the crest on the blade, then sawed at the ropes around his ankles. “You must be an Ambrose.”

“I'm Jax's cousin Dorian.”

“Where's Jax?”

“I don't know.” With shame he added, “They changed him.”

Pendragon looked up through his long hair. “I know,” he said. “How'd you get in here?”

“Brownie hole.”

“People can't use brownie holes, last I heard.”

“Some families in this clan can,” Dorian said. “It's a long story.”

“Can I get out that way?”

“Not without a brownie, a vial of your blood, and a spell only our spell caster knows.”

“That's a
no
then.” The final strands of the rope broke, and Pendragon stood up. “Next question. Why'd you come in here and cut me loose?”

“I wasn't aiming for here. I was trying to get to where they're holding Addie Emrys.” Dorian had ended up in a room with a prisoner, but he'd specified a girl, and he'd pictured the location of the room. What had gone wrong?

Her room is warded! The tunnels can't go there. They sent me to the next closest thing
.

“You didn't really answer my question,” Pendragon pointed out.

Dorian gave the most honest answer he had. “I don't want to be a Dulac vassal.”

Pendragon handed Dorian's dagger back, hilt first. “You're free to move. And your blade's dull. You should take care of that.”

Dorian fell away from the wall as though demagnetized. “Okay. Let's get you out of here.” He fished the screwdriver out of his pocket, turned toward the door, and froze.

No screws. Apparently the basement locks were important enough for an upgrade.

“Are you planning to dig your way out with a screwdriver?” asked Pendragon.

Dorian sucked in his breath. Before his eyes, the door handle jiggled, and he heard a key scrape in the lock. Whirling around, he flung himself toward the brownie hole. He'd given Pendragon a fighting chance—more than a chance, with that voice of command. No one could blame Dorian for not wanting to be caught in the cell.

But the brownie hole was gone. Dorian reached up, waving his hands through empty air. He hadn't expected to get
stranded
at the other end of his jump!

The door cracked open, and Billy stuck his head inside.
“Oh hey, Riley. You weren't the damsel in distress I was looking for.”

“Billy?” Dorian gasped. “How'd you—”

Billy held up a ring of keys. “Found the keys on this guy,” Billy said, pointing. Pendragon yanked the door open and stepped around Billy into the corridor.

Dorian followed, dumbfounded. Pendragon knelt beside a fallen man, checking for a pulse. “What'd you do to him?” Dorian asked. If Billy said he was a black belt in karate, Dorian would not have been surprised at this point.

“Nothing. There's another guy just like him down the hall. That padlock wasn't coming off. So I peeked out the other door and saw somebody lying on the ground. And I thought—”

“Drag him inside,” Pendragon interrupted. “I'll get the other one.”

Dorian's mind raced as they dragged the guards into the cell. Men didn't fall unconscious for no reason. Pendragon hadn't done it. Billy hadn't.
Who else
was down here?

Billy looked up at Pendragon with a grin. “I'm so psyched to be part of this.”

“You are one weird kid.” Pendragon turned to Dorian. “You said Addie was here?”

“Yeah. Follow me.”

If they could have tunneled through the walls like brownies, she was actually quite close. But because they had to go
around by way of the corridor, she was at the farthest point from them. And they didn't make it halfway before Dad, Aunt Ursula, and Sloane turned the corner that led to the elevator. It crossed Dorian's mind, as he came to a sudden, horrified stop, that maybe Addie Emrys wasn't even real. She was just a mirage he was never going to reach.

“Dorian!” Dad roared when he spotted his son where he shouldn't be
again
. And then, when he saw who was with Dorian, Dad pulled out a gun from his suit jacket.

Dorian's knees almost folded beneath him. He'd never seen his dad with a gun before.

“Freeze, Pendragon!” Dad yelled.

“Drop the gun,” Pendragon commanded.

Dad almost did. Dorian saw him fumble it. Then Aunt Ursula grabbed his shoulder, and Dad recovered himself, tightening his grip. “Dorian!” Sloane exclaimed. “Get over here!”

Dorian backed up, moving closer to Pendragon and Billy. Choosing his side.

“Drop the gun,” Pendragon said again.

Dad fought the command. “Unhand my son!” he shouted back.

Pendragon looked at Dorian. “Him? I don't have any hands on him.
Ambrose, drop the gun!
”

Adding the name magnified the magic. Dad nearly lost all will to hold it, but then he looked at Dorian and put a second hand up to hold the gun steady. “Dorian, try to come to us. He's got you under compulsion.”

“No, he doesn't, Dad.”

“You're not going to shoot me, Ambrose,” Pendragon said. “Put the gun down.”

Aunt Ursula gripped Dad's arm and leaned toward him. “If you can't shoot him, distract him. Shoot the Latino boy.”

Dad's aim swung toward Billy.

“Dad!” screamed Dorian.

His father shuddered, and Dorian wasn't sure what would've happened next if a couple hundred brownies hadn't poured out of the wall behind them.