The Third Key (The Alaesha Legacy Book 1) (15 page)

"Ollie must have known something bad was going to happen because after you left, he would not leave my side. He was under foot all day long, driving me mad. Thank goodness he was. I was getting ready for bed when they came. I could hear a lot of screaming and fighting downstairs. I don't know how they got in. I grabbed my bow and ran to Dana's room, the dog right behind me. That Reformer almost beat me there. He was coming up the other staircase, the one at the back. He had two men with him. Ollie attacked and forced them back long enough for me to get the door open. I shot the one and he went down. We almost didn't get the door shut. It took Ollie biting them through the gap and Dana and I pushing with all our might, but we did it. And then we waited."

Charles pulled his sister into a hug. The woman who was always so strong and vocal was shaking like a leaf. "You did a good job. Everyone is safe now."

As Charles rested on the bed, Boxy and Veth came to give a report of the situation.

“Several rooms in the house have been destroyed,” the woman declared, her normally light voice taking on a very annoyed tone. ”Many valuables were taken or destroyed. The unicorn barn is beyond repair. Three of them were burned so badly we had to put them down.” She shifted slightly and lowered her eyes. “Nadine and Lago were among them.”

Veth put a hand on the woman's arm, taking over the report.  “Two of your servants are dead, but when we arrived, Niatha and his boys had things pretty well under control. We helped finish the job.”

Boxy took over again. “Eight Reformers in total, all dead. Including the one who was here, Alex, and his second in command who broke in and freed him. Edlaner is taking his Keeper to a safe house, then he will rejoin us here.”

Charles gave his thanks and the pair retreated. He sat up, rubbing his face. Edith sank down beside him. Mags tugged at Dana's arm and together they left the room, giving the two some privacy.

"What a horrific day." He sighed and was quiet for a minute.

Edith set her hand on his knee. "I'm so sorry about Nadine and Lago. About everything."

Charles's face pinched and he tipped his head back. He blinked rapidly, trying to clear the tears that flooded his eyes. He laughed a little as he looked down at Edith. "You must think me a child, crying like this in front of you."

Edith gave him a small smile and brushed some tears from his cheek. "Not at all. You're one of the bravest, strongest men I know. Your home was attacked. You lost friends and could have lost your family. That's going to get to anyone."

Charles wrapped his arms around Edith and pulled her to him. They sat quietly for a little while, letting their touch comfort each other.

Charles sighed. "We leave in two days' time to get the next key."

Edith pulled back, looking at him with raised eyebrows. "After all this? That soon?"

He nodded wearily. "We need that key. We've started the attack and the longer we wait, the more time they have to amass their forces."

“But why can't anyone else go? Why you? Surely you've done enough.”

Charles smiled weakly. “Very few Alaeshans know what's going on. We have enough trouble with the ones who do. We cannot risk the exposure. The advisers are the most equipped at handling these things. We're trained for it.” He leaned over and bumped his forehead gently against hers. "Go get some sleep. We go at dawn."

He stood and left the room, determined to set his abused house right before he left.

Chapter 16

"Rise and shine, ladies. Time to head out," Mags announced as she threw open the curtains, waking Edith and Dana from a night of fitful sleep.

Everyone else was up and gathered in the dining hall, making preparations for the attempt to retrieve the First Key. Boxy was somber, her face drawn. She was completely ignoring any attempts Nach made to cheer her up. As Edith walked by the pair, Nach put an arm around Boxy's shoulder, pulling her to him for a half hug.

"She'll be all right. We'll get it back and she’ll be okay. They both will."

Boxy had been the adviser for the royal family for centuries, her bond with the Keepers growing with each new monarch. The death of the Queen Mother was hard on her, Charles had told Edith during training. With the Queen being so ill, they all feared the worst would happen, not just to the key but to the Queen as well. If it did, Boxy would be torn apart emotionally.

"Over here." Charles waved a hand from the side of the room. Edith and Dana trotted over to him.

"So what's the plan?" Edith asked, noticing her friend's discomfort and disentangling herself from Charles.

"Well, since the key has been stolen, they can't use it so they're stuck in your world until they find a loophole. That buys us a little more time but also a few more issues. The Fifth Door is closest, but the Keeper is still out of it. And we've received word that they have scouts at the other side of the door. So we're going to go through the Third Door, your door.  When we get there, you and I are going to take Dana and Mags to a safe house in your world."

Edith frowned and raised her hand. "Uh, question."

Charles grinned. "Yes, Ms. Myers?" he said in an almost perfect imitation of Edith's ninth-grade history teacher. It kind of freaked her out for a second.

"How are we getting to England? I don't have a passport."

"Ah, you forget I am a man of many talents, my darling." He dug in his pocket and retrieved a little blue book. Bowing slightly, he raised the book with a flourish. "For you, my dear Edith. Your ticket to the world."

Edith took it. It was a perfect replica of an official passport. How Charles had managed to snap such a miserable photo of her, or how he conjured one from thin air, she wasn't sure she wanted to know. No one but government workers and pharmacy photo clerks had a right to take such awful pictures. Regardless, the passport looked legitimate, despite her limited knowledge of the subject.

"Don't lose that," Charles admonished teasingly. "I don't have time to make another. Wouldn't want to have to smuggle you through customs." 

"Are the little ladies ready?" Edith jumped as Veth spoke right beside her. She looked down at the man, noticing for the first time that a big chunk of beard was gone, having been replaced by a large, white bandage.

"Oh my god," she said before she could clap a hand over her mouth.

"Ah, no big deal." He waved a hand dismissing her concern. "Just a little scratch. Missing a bit of my excessively large chin. It's a relief, actually. Maybe now I won't have to have such a large beard."

He grinned at her and winked. She returned the smile, albeit weakly.

"Off we go, then." Veth clapped his meaty, fur-covered hands and trotted off down the hallway, followed by the other advisers.

Mags had joined the little group when Edith wasn't looking and handed backpacks to her and Dana. Edith opened hers, rummaging through its contents while the others started to follow the rest of the group.

"Wait," she called. Charles paused, looking back at her with his eyebrows raised. "I need my bow. And my dagger." It struck her as odd that she felt unsafe without them after only a few days.

The corner of Charles's lip quirked up. "You'll get them when we get to England, love. I'm not about to have a human try to carry weapons into another country. We'll have enough trouble without having to bust you out of prison."

Edith opened her mouth to protest, but when an image of her trying to walk through security with the massive bow in one hand and a dagger strapped to her leg flitted through her mind, she grinned. "I guess that makes sense."

Charles gave a half bow. "I do have my moments."

"Are you coming or not? We don't have all day." Mags stood with her arms crossed at the mouth of the hallway, tapping her foot impatiently.

Charles wrapped an arm around his sister's shoulder. "Eager to see your boyfriend again, eh?"

For the first time ever, Edith saw Mags blushed. Several years melted from her face as she turned pink and walked away down the hall. "Shush you. He's just a friend."

"Yeah and Ollie isn't a massive beast who will eat your face if you cross him."

The dog came trotting up at his name. Charles leaned over, scratching his ears. "You're in charge, big boy. Keep everyone safe, okay?" Edith could have sworn that the dog nodded before he licked Charles's face.

Further down the hall, they reached  the open door to the sitting room Edith had seen when they first entered the house. It felt like a lifetime ago, back when she was still young and naive, before she had become an efficient killer. The area around the door in the hall was blackened with deep gouges in the wood paneling. As Edith stepped inside, she looked at the door. It looked like it had endured a bombing. The wood was splintered in places and huge gashes covered its surface. The inside of the room was in perfect condition, though.

Charles noticed her face. "Alex and his men tried to get in. He failed."

The others were piled inside, huddled around the door. They parted to let Charles pass through.

"Only the adviser can open the door from this side," Mags explained quietly. "Not even you could open it if you wanted to."

"Even with the key?" Edith was surprised at that. "What if something happened to the adviser? The Keeper would be stuck here."

The woman nodded knowingly. "The adviser is supposed to be above reproach. If something were to happen to them, a new adviser would be assigned. Until then, the Keeper would remain in our world."

"What about the other door? Can the adviser open it? Or do you have to have the key?"

Mags smiled as Charles opened the door and the others started filing through. "Today we will need  the key. The magic surrounding the key and the door is beyond our full comprehension. It seems to know when an adviser or Keeper needs access immediately. It does not hold to the same rules we do, oddly enough. What in our estimation may be an emergency, the magic does not. Lucky for you, though, it allowed Charles through the other day."

As they walked along the stone hall, Edith frowned. "But how did the Reformers get to my world? I mean, if they couldn't open any doors, how did they get in? And what about all the Alaeshans living over there?"

Boxy had fallen to the back of the group and was walking alongside Edith. "We do not know how the Reformers got in. They somehow managed to break in through the Seventh Door. We know they lost men doing it, but we don't know how they did it. It is very frustrating, because if we don't know what they did, we cannot stop them from doing it again." Worry lines etched themselves deeply into Boxy's proud, smooth face. "As for the Alaeshans living in your world, they have been approved by a special council. There has to be a valid reason for living over there. Some have them, some don't. Most are there to assist your kind and ours in some way."

Edith thought about that until she was called to open the door. So many people were jammed into the small hallway that it took a bit of maneuvering to get to the front of the line. She pulled the key from under her shirt, feeling the familiar warmth in her hand.

As soon as the door opened, she knew something was wrong. A faint scent of smoke wafted through the opening. It had the smells of the diner, but also something more, something vile. Her nose curled involuntarily as she pulled the key from the lock.

Charles sensed it, too. He pulled Edith back through the door. "Stay here," he commanded. Along with Veth and Edlaner, he edged up the stairs carefully. Edith watched him disappear from view, her fingers trying to close around a dagger that wasn't there.

Boxy stood beside her with her pointed ears pricked up in the direction the others had gone. Minutes ticked by and Edith's heart began to pound in her chest. Where had they gone? Were they all right? What would she do if they didn't come back?

Boxy tensed as she took a semi-relaxed fighting stance. Her eyes were locked on the stairs. A foot came into view and Edith ducked her head, trying to see who it was. Veth lumbered into sight, his normal frown even more pronounced.

"They've been here," he said, his voice gruff.

"Baker?" Boxy asked.

"Dead, looks like. Come on, let's go." He headed back up the stairs.

"Go," Boxy whispered, nodding her head after him.

Edith followed Veth up the stairs, with Mags and Dana right behind her. The others brought up the rear slowly. The door thudded softly as it closed and Edith paused briefly to wait for the key. For better or for worse, she was in this world, in a diner where something really bad had happened. She took a deep breath to calm herself. It was a mistake. The smell was much worse there. It had a hint of burnt flesh along with the grease. She almost gagged, but fought back the curling feeling in her stomach. She grabbed the key and headed for the stairs.

Edith had been watching her feet as she walked in the gloom and noticed splotches of red on the steps. The dark stairway lightened considerably as she examined the odd prints. She glanced up. Where once was a doorway now was open sky. The cement overhead remained intact, but the opening that led to the diner was destroyed. She emerged out of the stairwell and looked around. The whole place was burnt beyond recognition. Large portions of the walls were gone completely, replaced by blackened studs. Booths where patrons had sat to eat the best meals of their lives were melted masses of vinyl and plastic. The kitchen area was completely gone, a mere hole in the dirt. It looked like a bomb hit the diner very precisely, leaving the buildings around it alone. They didn't even have scorch marks on them.

"Definitely the Reformers," said Boxy. "Probably the same day you saved the girls."

Charles nodded. "Yeah." His voice was soft, barely a whisper. Edith slid her arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close.

They stood in silence amid the rubble and chaos. Passersby walking on the streets outside the diner didn't seem to notice a huge group of people standing in a burnt-out building. They didn't seem to notice the building at all.

"Well, let's get to it then. Standing around won't solve anything." Veth shuffled toward the door, avoiding the larger piles of ash.

Pulled from their stupor, the rest of them followed quickly. When they were on the sidewalk, Edith looked back. From the outside, the diner looked like any other abandoned building, long forgotten by an owner who didn't care anymore. A CLOSED sign hung on the door, the windows were caked in dust. The paint was even crumbling. It looked like the place hadn't been used in years.

The Alaeshans were staring at it, too, and Edith could see a sign of hope in Charles's eyes. He saw her looking at him and smiled. "Only an Alaeshan could do that. Only one with lots of talent."

Edith raised her eyebrows quizzically. "Baker," he explained. "Either him or Jen. Maybe both. At least one of them made it out alive."

Edith smiled, finally understanding. The diner was destroyed, but there was a very strong chance that at least a few people made it out of the destruction alive. Edith held onto that hope.

"All right, you get the girls to the safe house, we'll meet you at the airport." Veth didn't wait for a response before sauntering off at a rapid pace. His companion followed quickly.

Boxy and Nach broke off in another direction as did Edlaner and his second in command. Within moments, Edith was alone with her friends.

Before Charles could say anything, Mags took off, dragging Dana behind her. Charles gave Edith a wink and slipped his fingers in hers. Together, they followed Mags through the streets.