The Charleston Chase (Phantom Knights Book 2) Page 19

  When he could no longer stay in his seat, he started to pace around the room, glancing at the black box at every turn. I had moved to his chair, and Jack perched on the arm as we read over every word.

  The symbols, numbers, and letters represented a riddle, that when placed in what we thought was the correct order, read:

  The usurper has come, to destroy the light; the time is now, to restore the right.

  Through lightning we strike, the evil within, who gained his power, through usurping and sin

  Through lightning we strike, once and for all, to restore the right, bringing justice to all

  “Is this some sort of Holy Order chant?” I asked, looking between Sam and Jack.

  “No,” Jack said slowly, drawing out the word. He looked up from the desk to stare at Sam. “This is a map.”

  “Right you are,” Sam replied, still pacing, “but a map of what? And to what lengths will the Holy Order go to have it restored to them.”

  An awful conviction was brewing in my mind and chest. That we were about to discover the length, and the price would be dear to us all.

  Chapter 18

  Jack

  When I told Bess I had received a letter from Gideon, it was not the whole truth. I had received one from him, but it was a missive from Guinevere that had me making my way down the port at eight in the evening. She wanted to meet alone, and I could not tell Bess, for she did not trust Guinevere.

  Approaching the warehouse that Guinevere had named in her letter as a place to meet, my eyes darted all around the darkening night, searching for a sign of danger. As much as I loved the woman I did not set it above her sending me into an ambush, if it suited her purpose.

  If Levi was with her, I would flog him and no one could stop me. I was bitter over Levi’s betrayal, not only of our family but of Bess, who had loved him as a brother since the time he joined the Phantoms. He knew as well as the rest of us that Bess would never surrender the names of our team, even if it had been me being tortured, but then, I would never ask that of her. Nor had Levi asked her to. Bess said that he had given her his mutinous look, meaning that on no account was she to surrender, but in the middle of torture you do not think about that; you only want it to end. We had been trained since small children never to betray our Phantom family, no matter the cost, but what cost was too great? I would have given my life for our cause, but Bess’s life? Never.

  The assigned meeting place was at the end of a mile long row of buildings at the port. Stepping through the only door and glancing around the large room, it was filled with stacked crates, boxes, bolts of fabric, and sacks of grain, rice, beans and more food items. Behind me, the large door slid closed and I smiled. I did not have to turn around to know who had closed the door and locked it.

  There was a black lantern on the floor waiting for me, so I picked it up and walked further into the room and through the maze of crates. Nearly to the center of the maze of crates, there came a click behind me before cold steel was pressed against my neck.

  “Growing careless, Jack?” Guinevere asked.

  “No, my heart. Trusting.”

  She leaned close to my left shoulder, and I could feel her breath on my neck as she said, “Never trust a woman holding a gun, Jack.”

  Slowly, I sat the lantern on a crate, not making any sudden movements. “Even when that woman is my betrothed?” I asked, and her breath caught in her throat, making a sound like a sob.

  She stepped back, but the barrel of her gun was still pressed against my skin. “I am not your betrothed, Jack, not any longer.”

  “Why then did you have me meet you at that church saying we would be together? Why did you tell me about the Holy Order?”

  “To show you I can never marry you.”

  If she did not mean to marry me, then she could not expect me to be complaisant with her. I twisted down and around her weapon, wrapping my arm around her waist and pulling her against me in one fluid motion. She inhaled sharply as her hyacinth colored eyes stared up at my face. She bit on her bottom lip, her nervous action––the only one she had. Knowing that I still had the power to make her nervous sent a wave of excitement through me. I looked her over and smiled. She was wearing my favorite blue, the same color that matched the ring I had given her. She was also wearing her auburn wig. She was my Guinevere again.

  “You expect me to believe that yet you wear my ring on that chain around your neck.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but she did not ask how I knew what was on that chain. My power of observation she knew well. I leaned in closer, our lips but an inch apart, and felt a shiver course through her. Smiling and very pleased, I took a step back, releasing her.

  Turning away from her to take a look around the warehouse, I had to keep up an act of nonchalance to convince her that she did not affect me to my core. Every ounce of me wanted to grab her and kiss her until she was compliant, but that would not help my end goal. My mission was simple, but it would take all of my ingenuity to see it to fruition.

  “Why did you ask me to meet you here?”

  After a moment, she appeared beside me with the lantern in hand.

  “You need to leave this city, Jack. Take your sister and go. There are dangers here that you cannot understand.”

  Her voice was half warning, half pleading, and it grabbed my heart and tugged. I would leave after my mission was complete, and my sister was safe.

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no,” she demanded of me, following me as I walked deeper into the maze of crates. She insisted that I did not know what I was about.

  “This is not like last time, Jack, where I was able to barter for Bess’s life. These people will not negotiate.”

  “Oh, yes, the dreaded Holy Order.” I gave a mock shudder then turned toward her, leaning my shoulder against the crates and crossing my arms over my chest.

  “You know nothing of which you speak,” she retorted, mimicking my stance.

  “Then tell me.”

  She made a scoffing sound. I knew she would not give away such valuable information without a price, but I was not sure I would be able to pay the price she asked of me.

  “I will strike a bargain with you,” she said after a moment, and I nearly groaned. Guinevere’s bargains were always complex. “I will give you some information that you do not know in exchange for...”

  Her pause told me it would be something disagreeable. If she wanted me to leave her, to give her up, it would never happen. Where Guinevere was concerned, no terms would ever be acceptable to me to make me leave her.

  “The artifacts,” she said.

  Stiffening, I pushed off of the crates and turned away from her, my teeth grinding hard. The full significance of the artifacts to the Holy Order was unknown to me, but I knew that in the hands of Ma belle they would wield an unfathomable power. It was for that reason they had been kept in separate locations until I secured most of them.

  “No,” I replied as I heard her following me to the center of the crate maze.

  “You know that I have the chalice.”

  “Yes, and I also know how you came by that.” Turning to look at her, my words were filled with bitterness, “How is Levi?”

  “Determined,” was all she said.

  “I know all about Levi’s determination. He is wild, impulsive, headstrong, and longs to make a name for himself. Rather like you, is he not?” My anger was slipping through my hold, rearing itself, and I had little desire to hold it inside. “How long has Levi worked for you, Guinevere?”

  “Since I caught him following me in Philadelphia. I made him a bargain he could not refuse,” she snapped, her chin raising. We were on the brink of battle and we both knew it.

  “How is being tortured a fair bargain?”

  Her eyes narrowed; her cheeks scorched red. “That was an unfortunate occurrence. Levi does not blame me.”

  “So, now that you have him, you are finished with me? Levi and I do look similar. You were unhappy that yo
u could not bend me to your will, so you have substituted me for a little lap dog that will come at the snap of your fingers. What else do Levi and I now have in common? Your favors?”

  Her face contorted in hurt and then fury. Her hand flew up toward my face, but I grabbed her wrist, holding it between us. “Hitting is unbecoming.”

  “So are you,” Guinevere hissed. She wrenched her arm away and stomped away through the maze of crates.

  I felt like a complete fool, allowing my anger to overcome my common sense, but I did not follow her. I would not grovel at her feet for forgiveness, becoming the thing I had accused Levi of.

  It proved unnecessary to follow her, for it took only a few minutes before she returned to me with her cheeks fiery red.

  “You!” she growled at me.

  “Me?” I asked as innocently as I could manage.

  “You had those doors locked. I do not know how but you did.”

  “Of course I did.”

  She stepped toward me, looking like a fierce kitten. “Open those doors.”

  “I do regret that I cannot leap to your bidding, but those doors will remain locked,” I flipped out my timepiece and looked at it, “for the next nine hours.” I replaced my timepiece and leaned closer to her face. She did not shy away. “You and I, my love, will be spending the night together.”

  Her face paled, and I fought the urge to grin triumphantly.

  “You tricked me finely, Jack,” she said with a calculating smile.

  “Not so comfortable when you are on the receiving end, is it, Guinevere?”

  She did not reply but flounced away with the sway of her blue skirt. When she was out of sight, I leaned against a crate, drawing in long breaths. My confidence was not as high as I led her to believe, and now that my anger was cooling I was not sure this was the best idea. More time was needed with her to persuade her to tell me about the Holy Order, but I had foolishly believed that my resolve was enough to sustain my being locked up with her for an entire night.

  Every time we had been alone together in the past, we always ended in kissing each other nearly senseless. Even when I did not know she was the white phantom, we still ended in a heated embrace that took me hours to cool from.

  After taking a deep breath, I walked through the crate maze to find her. She was near the door looking for something. Seeing her bent down to search some shelves brought a smile to my lips.

  “It is no use searching, Guinevere, I had every tool removed. There is no way out until the laborers arrive in the morning.”

  She straightened, sending me a menacing glare. “You have thought of everything. Tell me, did you also plan a meal, or do you expect us to fast for nine hours?”

  My grin was wide. “Come with me.”

  She was a curious woman, though she tried to hide it, so I knew she was following me as I led the way toward the far wall of the warehouse. When I turned the last corner, I stopped, and Guinevere bumped into my back. She stepped around me, touching her nose and shooting me another angry look, which faded when she saw what was before us.

  It had cost me quite a sum, but the night guards allowed me to come in and set my things how I liked. It was they who locked us in after I arrived. I had trusted Guinevere not to be pulling me into a trap, but if there had been, one the guards was outside and would open the doors at any sound of trouble.

  There was a pile of blankets and pillows to make the hard floor comfortable, four lanterns to light the area, and a basket full of food made for me by Sam’s cook.

  Guinevere sat on the blankets with her feet tucked under her and her skirt spread around her like a fan. Her eyebrows rose when I only stared at her. “If you are going to trap me here, the least you can do is serve me.”

  I laughed as I moved to the basket and removed the cloth covering the food. “Be thankful that I love you as much as I do, Guinevere Clark, or you would be eating stale bread.”

  She did not reply as I laid dishes on the blanket before us. When I laid a flask beside the dishes, she looked at me with her dainty eyebrows raised.

  “It is only lemonade.”

  I removed a second flask from my pocket and opened it to take a swig.

  “Do not tell me that you are drinking lemonade, for I shall not believe you.” She took my flask from me and raised it to her lips. To my surprise, she did not cough at the strong taste. “I suppose you have been trained how to handle your liquor,” Guinevere said to me. “So too have I.”

  That should not have surprised me, but it did. Guinevere, I was still learning, was full of more secrets than known truths.

  “Tell me what you have been doing over the past seven months, Jack,” she said conversationally before she bit into an apple.

  “Searching for you.”

  She paused with her mouth hovering over her apple as she slowly looked at me.

  “I began with Baltimore, but you know what I found there. From there I traveled to New York, Washington, and finally back to Baltimore, where I learned that the Holy Order was in Charleston.”

  She put down her apple and twisted until she was seated facing me. “You should not have searched for me, Jack.”

  “I promised you I would.”

  She looked down at her clasped hands. “And I promised you a glorious chase.”

  Reaching out, I grasped her wrist. She looked at me sharply, but did not try to pull away. Shoving up the fabric of her sleeve, there, as I had hoped, was the bracelet I had made her when I proposed. She was watching me intently, waiting for my reaction. She loved me; it was as clear in her eyes as it was displayed on her wrist and on the necklace she wore.

  “I will go...” I said softly, and her eyes widened.

  For that moment, there was hurt and panic visible in her eyes before she dropped her gaze.

  “If you accompany me.”

  Her came snapped up, and her eyes narrowed in on mine. I knew she was searching my eyes for the honesty behind my words. Honesty was all she would receive from me this day. I would leave Charleston behind if she would go with me.

  “That is not possible,” she replied fiercely.

  “Why?” I asked calmly. That defined us. Calm when the other was fierce.

  Her eyes were filled with so much emotion that she looked as if she would break if I said the wrong words. I tugged her toward me as I leaned back to rest my head against one of the pillows. She stared down at me with wide, wary eyes.

  “I have no designs against your virtue this night, my love. You can trust me.”

  “It is not your designs that trouble me, Jack,” she said, but lay beside me, her head resting against my shoulder.

  Our fingers touched, resting on my stomach. I spread out our fingers until our hands were palm to palm. I traced my fingers over hers, down to her palm then back up. Guinevere began speaking.

  “The Holy Order owns me, Jack. Bought with a price that I can never repay.”

  “Tell me the figure and I will give it to you.” I whispered because my voice would not rise higher for all of the anger choking me.

  “Money means nothing to them. They bought me with secrets, and the price of leaving them is more than I could ever sacrifice. So, when I say that I cannot marry you, it is not that I do not want to more than I have ever wanted any other thing in my life. It is that I cannot choose my greatest heart’s desire over the secrets of my past.”

  My head was turned on the pillow. Her face had not shown any emotion when she spoke, not anger, not sorrow, not pain. She was like a canvas painted white, but just because you could not see the picture did not mean that it was not there. I knew that if I could strip back the layer of paint I would see a masterpiece that would both amaze and terrify me.

  “I will never give up.”

  She turned her face on my arm until she was looking at me, our noses nearly touching. She allowed her sorrow to slip through the shield that guarded her. “I know.”

  We laid there for a few hours talking about our childhoods, of how th
e Phantoms were formed, how I came to America, her first horse, her first time eating a peach, but never about her family, her past, or her secrets. She was cautious about what she told me, but I accepted anything she would give me because it was a tiny glimpse into who she truly was, not the white phantom, but the eighteen year old girl.

  When we had drained my flask, she started to speak of the artifacts. I listened intently, recording everything in my mind. The first three artifacts that the Holy Order had brought with them were the chalice, the black box, and a ring.

  It disheartened me to think that Bess and I had had two of the three original artifacts in our keeping and let one of them slip through our fingers.

  The small sword she said was used for the swearing ceremonies where they anointed a new lord to the twelve. The dagger was used for the blood sacrifice. When I looked askance, she smiled, flicking her finger lightly over my cheek. She said it was only a small cut on the palm and three drops of blood into the chalice.

  The book of incantations was read from during their ceremonies. The original snake ring was worn by the leader of their enemy, and the last ring was worn by the leader of the Holy Order. It was all perplexing, but she never did say what the black box was used for.

  We slept for a few hours, her head on my chest and my arm around her waist, holding her securely against me. If she moved an inch, I woke, ready to fight to keep her with me.

  It was half past four when we rose and gathered up the blankets. I knew I had half an hour before she would leave me again, but I had to make a final push for her.

  When all the blankets were folded, and she had put on her gloves and was seated on a crate, I moved to stand before her, drawing her to her feet. My fingers pulled on the edge of her black glove until it slipped over her wrist, her fingers, and then fluttered to the ground.

  She was watching my every movement, and the way she held her breath, I knew she was fighting her resolve. I raised her palm to my lips.

  “I know a way to get you away from the Holy Order.” She looked skeptical. “Marry me,” I whispered against her warm palm.