Forbidden (The Seeker Saga, #2) (10 page)

“We’re not the only ones in here,” I whispered.

Liz nodded.  “I can hear them, too.  From the next floor up.  We have to be quiet.  If anybody finds us, they’re going to ask questions.” 

“I’m going to take a look,” Ashley said, and ran silently up the stairs.  We followed her up, but remained inside the stairwell as she peeked around the corner.

“Do you see anything?” Madison asked.  Her voice carried a touch of worry.

“There’s a light at the end of the hall,” Ashley said softly.  “I think that’s where the sound is coming from.”

“Oh, give over,” Eve said, pushing between me and Madison.  “Nobody’s going to go looking in an empty hallway.”  Fearlessly – and somewhat recklessly – she stepped into the hall.  She checked both ways, and then turned to us.  “Nobody’s here,” she confirmed.  “But I think room 216 is in the same wing as where the voices are coming from.”

“Let’s just hurry up and get this over with,” I said.  I didn’t like sneaking around in a large, dark building.  You could never tell what would be waiting for you around one corner.

Eve nodded, and started down the hall.  I went after her, and the rest of the girls trailed me.  I read the room numbers as we passed.  200.  202.  204.  Each of the doors was closed, but I noticed, to my relief, that there was a slot to swipe an ID card beside each one. 

“
This
is where we need to be careful,” Eve emphasized as we reached the corner.  The voices had become louder as we got closer.  They were now clearly distinguishable as two people talking.  Eve peeked around the side, and immediately pulled her head back.  “The door is open,” she said, “and that’s where the voices are coming from.  Unfortunately, we have to get past them to the other side.”

“Let me see,” I said.  I moved silently to peek into the room.  I saw that it was just two professors talking.  Neither of them was facing the door.  I motioned for the girls to follow, and slipped by the opening.  Once everyone was on the other side, I breathed a sigh of relief.  We continued on, and I counted the room numbers until we hit the one marked 216.

“This is it,” I said as I pulled the ID card from my pocket.  “There’s no going back once we do this.  Does anybody have any last minute objections?”

“Oh, for crying out loud!” Eve exclaimed, and ripped the card from my hand.  Before I knew it, she swiped it through the slot beside the door.  I held my breath in anticipation.  After a moment, a
click
sounded, and the door popped open.

“Thanks,” I whispered sarcastically, taking the card back from her.  She gave an indifferent shrug, and kicked the door forward with one foot.   

I took a breath and stepped over the threshold into the dark room.  A shiver ran down my spine.  This was the office of the man who had ordered the attack last night—the office of someone who
taught
at Oliver Academy.

“Quickly,” I said, ushering the other girls through.  Once they were all in, I made sure to close the door firmly behind me.  That quickly proved foolish, however, because with the door shut there was no light to see. 

Suddenly, a familiar blue light erupted beside me.  It coated the whole room and instantly replaced the dark.  I didn’t even have time to think before it disappeared.

“Who was that?” Liz demanded.  I heard her shuffling around.  “Why did you do that?”

“For
this
,” Eve said, and suddenly the lights in the room flickered on.

I stared into the room, seeing it for the first time.  The office stretched far into the building.  It was a narrow space, windowless, and there was a desk at the far end with no chair.  Shelves crowded the side walls made the room seem claustrophobic.  There were stacks of papers on the desk, on the shelves, and all over the floor.  Some were yellow with age while others looked freshly-printed.  Books littered every surface of the room.  Some were haphazardly thrown open while others stood stacked in neat mounds.  A small path was carved through the mess on the floor leading to the end of the room.  I glanced at one of the open books that lay close to me, and saw there were notes scribbled in a barely-legible hand all over the margins.  Chris’s father, it seemed, was a pedantic man.

“Nobody’s been in here a while,” Ashley said.

“How can you tell?” I asked.

“There’s dust on everything,” she answered.  “Look at the shelves.”  I did, and saw that she was right.  A layer of gray powder covered all the shelves and all the items on the shelves.  Even the open book near me, the one I would have assumed recently used, had dust coating its pages.   

“Alright, well, with this type of mess,” Liz said, motioning around her, “we’d better start looking.  We can spend all day and not even go through half the stuff.”

“What exactly are we looking for?” Madison asked.

“Clues,” Liz answered.  “Clues as to why the crystals are so important to Chris and his dad.  There’s no denying there’s power behind the crystals, but we don’t know very much about it.  Maybe there’s something here that will tell us more.”

“And why
she’s
so important,” Eve added, glancing at me.  “Chris was asking for her in the caves, and the attacker came specifically for her.  Something makes Tracy special in his eyes, and we have to know what.  Otherwise, we won’t even know what we’re up against.  And we have to know that if we’re going to keep her safe.”

“Thanks for the concern,” I said, and genuinely meant it.  Eve was somewhat of an enigma.  Sometimes, she could be abrasive and stand-offish, but at other times she could be fiercely loyal. 

“Keeping you safe means keeping all of us safe,” Eve shrugged, and the warm moment faded.

“Let’s get to it,” I said, and, taking the lead, started for the far end of the room.  I heard the other girls shuffling behind me.  Some of them stayed back to look near the door, while others walked farther in to investigate the shelves.

I reached the desk, and frowned.  Right in the middle of it was an empty space.  What was odd about it was that there was an impression of a rectangular shape framed against the dust.  It looked like a book had been there before, but was taken away recently.  I swiped a finger on the clean portion of the desk and brought it up to my eye to take a look.  There was not a hint of dust on it.

“Somebody’s been here recently,” I announced.  The other girls froze.

“How do you know?” Liz asked softly after a moment.

“There was a book on this desk, but now it’s gone,” I explained.  “The dust hasn’t had a chance to settle on the spot yet.”

“Let me see,” Eve said, walking up to me.  I pointed out the spot to her, and she examined it carefully.  “She’s right,” she confirmed after a few moments, as if my word didn’t hold enough weight.

“Do you think it was the same man who came after you?” Madison asked.  “If he had the ID card, maybe he also used it to retrieve something from here.”

“Actually, that makes a lot of sense,” I said. “Who else would have access to the office?  You need Chris’s dad’s card to get here.”

“We can ask him later today,” Liz volunteered. 

“You want to…
talk
to him?” I asked.  My throat constricted at the idea.

“Of course,” Liz answered smoothly.  “We have to see if he can give us answers about why he was here.  Why he wanted you.  Don’t worry,” she added gently. “He’s still behind bars.  There’s no way he’ll be getting out.”

“I… guess,” I said.  It made rational sense to speak to him, but the thought of doing so sent shivers down my spine.  I had made him up in my mind as some sort of monster, incapable of speech or even thought.  But that was the better of my imagination getting to me.  He was only a man, and he was incapacitated at that.  But if anybody knew what was going on, he would.  Maybe.  Hopefully.

“With luck, he’ll be awake after we’re done here,” Ashley muttered.  “But let’s not waste time.  If we’re wrong, and it
wasn’t
the man in the caves who got the book, then what’s to say the person won’t come again?”

“Right,” I nodded, setting back to work.  I heard the girls doing the same.

I started by picking through the papers on the desk.  There were literally hundreds of sheets there.  Going through each of them one by one would be overwhelming.  But there was nothing else to do.  I picked up a handful of papers and leafed through them.  There was nothing of interest there. They were just reports of the geology
department’s finances, updates on what other professors were doing in their research, some memos about grading, and other such things that were completely meaningless to me.  Putting those papers aside, I began working through the next stack.

For a good twenty minutes, we worked in silence, searching for something in the room that might grant us a clue.  What type of clue, I couldn’t say. But, I suspected we would know when we saw it.  I heard intermittent groans of frustration from some of the girls as we worked, but for the most part I kept my head down and kept searching.  I was less than a fifth through the papers on the desk when Madison gave a startled cry.

“What is it?” I demanded, spinning around.  I saw her standing by one of the shelves, staring at something in her hands.

“Look at this!” she exclaimed.  “Come, quick!”

I ran to her, as did the other girls.  Madison held in her hand a long, rolled up piece of paper that looked like a wall poster.  Except that it was yellow with age.

“Check it out!” she said excitedly, unrolling the paper slightly.  “Don’t these look familiar?”

There were a bunch of odd, twisting lines visible in the space Madison opened up.  I frowned.  I didn’t understand what the commotion about.  At least, not until Liz snatched the parchment from Madison and brought it close to her face.

“This is something,” she murmured under her breath.  I looked around at the other girls.  Ashley gave a frown and Eve just shrugged.  None of us were sure what was going on.

Before I knew it, Liz collapsed to her knees and cleared a space on the floor.  “Tracy, hold that end,” she said, unrolling the parchment and handing me an edge.  I did, and she unfurled it the rest of the way.  Ashley took hold of that side without being asked.  The rest of the paper was just like the small part I’d seen before, all unfamiliar lines and symbols.  There were precise triangles and squares imposed over the lines in a very light color.  I heard Eve gasp beside me. 

“What is it—” I began. But then I saw it.  The lines weren’t unfamiliar at all.  They were copies of the runes that Liz had shown me in the caves. 
Precise
copies of the runes that were engraved into that deep underground wall.

 “How is this possible?” Ashley asked.  She sounded awe-struck.  “Liz, you were the only one who knew about this.  Right?”

“That’s what I thought.  But, obviously, somebody else did.  Madison, where did you find this?”

“It was wedged in a hiding spot underneath the shelf,” she explained.  “If I hadn’t dropped the book I was looking at, I would have never found it.”

“So Chris’s dad thought it valuable enough to hide,” Liz said thoughtfully.  “But not valuable enough to take with him. Why?”

“You guys are the only ones who knew about the cave entrance?” I asked.  “Nobody else did?”

“No,” Ashley answered.  “Liz showed us, but that’s it.”

“And you were the ones to string the lights up?  Right?”

“That’s right,” Liz said.  “The four of us did it together a few years ago.”

“How
did
you find the caves, Liz?” I asked.

“Like I said, I was just exploring the island that day,” she explained.  “And as I walked by… I felt a sort of
pull
from there.  I stumbled across the entrance, and couldn’t help but go inside.”

“And that’s where you found the crystals, and all this?” I asked, motioning over the spread parchment on the floor.

Liz nodded in confirmation.  “Yes.  As far as I know, nobody else was ever there.  At least, not after I found it.”

“Wait a minute,” Eve interrupted.  She had been unusually focused on the large paper.  “I… don’t think this is just a copy.”

“What do you mean?” Ashley asked.

“I mean, this looks more like a
design
,” Eve said.  “A blueprint.”

I raised an eyebrow at her, and Ashley and Liz and Madison looked equally confounded.

“…What makes you say that?” Liz asked.

“Look at how perfect the curves of the lines are.  Look at the faint etchings of supporting shapes around the main markings.  This looks like somebody designed it, not copied it from something they saw.”  I frowned again.  None of the other girls seemed to understand her explanation any better than I.  “My dad’s an architect,” she added after a pause.  “Some of the blueprints I’ve seen him make have a similar feel.”

“So what you’re saying,” I said slowly, “is that somebody thought up this design, and then went down there and carved it into the stone?”

“That’s what it looks like to me,” Eve answered.