Van Bender and the Burning Emblems (The Van Bender Archives #1) (14 page)

-Elizabeth Van Bender

I looked at my watch. 11:42. I needed to be back at 11:47.

I opened the door at the end of the hallway and stepped into a large room with couches and a TV. I passed to the other side, where a small nook had three doors. The emotion felt stronger to the right, so I opted for that door, hoping that Mom’s desire to keep me locked away from this world didn’t prove prophetic. I could see her at my funeral, saying, “I tried to protect him. I tried.”

I paused, facing the door, trying to talk myself into opening it, telling myself that this was a chance to prove myself—just like Marti was using it to prove herself. I could show my parents that I was capable, that I didn’t need to be protected from everyone and everything.

Licking my lips, I turned the handle and opened the door.

A jet of white light blossomed in front of me, and sped toward my head before curing toward my chest. I don’t know how that’s possible, but the stream of light grew as thick as my leg for a moment, then shrunk and turned toward my sternum. It penetrated my shirt, and touched a suddenly hot spot on my chest.

So much for SOaP intelligence.

I stood there, dazed, not knowing—then realizing—what had just happened as the hot thing touching my chest became cold.

The necklace Mom had given me. It had protected me. Just like she’d said it would. Although I had no idea exactly
what
it had protected me from.

I pulled the necklace out from under my shirt. The pendant—a circle with a person standing inside of it, arms outstretched—had been silvery. Now it was burnt and black.

“Thank you, Mom,” I whispered. “And no thank you, SOaP intelligence.”

As I put the necklace back under my shirt, my jaw dropped. I forgot all about Mom and traps.

Multi-colored ambient lighting shone down on shelves that covered every wall completely. On each shelf sat a guitar. Probably two hundred and fifty in all, each just waiting to be picked up and played. Each with a different design. Some with flames, others with skulls, and yet others with funky patterns the eye could hardly follow.

This was Nick Savage’s legendary guitar collection.

He switched guitars almost every concert. Half the people went just to see what his guitar would look like. Here, I assumed, he kept his favorite ones.

I stepped into the middle of the room, near a pair of stools, each by a music stand. A cord with a quarter-inch jack dangled from each stand, plugging in to the floor. They probably fed into an amp that powered speakers mounted in the walls.

I swallowed hard and rotated to look at the guitars. How awesome would it be to play a few riffs on one? It would only take a second. I chose one—with flames along the neck—and reached for it.

But I stopped, hands held out, fingers almost touching the guitar.

This was a deadlier trap than anything I’d met so far that night. I could spend hours here.

I felt for the emotion. It was through the door to my left.

With a longing glance at the guitars, I braced for another trap, hoping the necklace would protect me again, and continued on through the door. This time, I triggered no trap in the doorway, but in this new room the power of the emotion hit me almost like a punch to the face.

The emotion was here, somewhere in the silence.

Two chairs sat in front of a desk. To the left, open blinds allowed moonlight to filter down in white stripes onto the dark desk. On the desk sat a computer monitor, and behind the desk sat a large chair with its high, wide back turned to me. Behind the chair stood a cabinet.

The emotions were in it. I could feel them as if I could see right through the wooden door. I could have pointed directly at the place where they stood on the shelf, about waist high, on the right side.

As I hurried around the desk, reaching for the chair’s arm to push it out of the way, I placed my hand on someone’s hairy arm.

Chapter 25: Busted

I’m pretty sure that if his mom knew what he was doing, Richie would have been grounded until the end of time. Times two.

-Nick Savage

I’d expected to feel cool leather, but instead felt a warm, hairy arm.

I jumped away and cried out. My heartbeat continued at an even pace, thanks to the spell Marti had cast—otherwise I really might have died from a heart attack. I backed into the wall and stood petrified as the chair turned to me. Moonlight lit its back, but the front, where the person sat, laid in shadow. And although I could barely see the shape of a head, shoulders, and arms in the chair, the spiked hair gave away the person’s identity.

I thrust my hand into my pocket, to feel the warmth of the diffuser for reassurance.

Nick chuckled.

I made a break for the door.

“Hold on, son,” Nick said.

I stopped and turned to him as he rotated the chair toward me, so the striped moonlight lit half of his face and hair. I stood across the desk from him, trying to gauge how long since he’d left my dressing room. Ninety minutes? Two hours?

“I, I—”

“You shouldn’t have come here, Richie.”

“Uh, ah—”

“You shouldn’t have. I knew you would, but you shouldn’t have. You’re putting my plan in jeopardy. The Solar Flare could find out about the emotion and my plans.”

“What? I—”

“I expected you. I knew SOaP would send you for the emotions—although I thought they would send you with someone more experienced. Maybe your father, Grant Budly, or Linford. “

I breathed hard. My heart should have been pounding.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “I didn’t have time to explain everything before I left. I reckon you’ve seen and heard a lot, about a lot of things. Unfortunately, I still don’t have time to tell you. The Solar Flare has already summoned me, and I can’t delay.”

“Were you at the Reservoir with him?”

He waved the question away with a hand. He kept his voice calm and reassuring. “Son, you need to trust me. In the past, I was the type of person that Intersoc thinks I am. But I’ve changed. I’m only going along with the Solar Flare until I reach the point that I can destroy him. Been that way for years.”

“You tricked me and stole my emotion.”

“No, I didn’t. You let me take it. I told you what it was, and what we would do with it. Perhaps you didn’t know its true value, but I most assuredly did not take it by force or deceit.”

True enough, but could I trust him? Could I believe anyone?

“Think about it, son. SOaP is a top-secret government agency. You can search, but you won’t find any records or evidence of it. Not even any speculation of its existence. Not even on the Internet. It’s that secret.”

That impressed me.

“What are you going to do to me?” I said. I’d started to sweat, because despite his kind demeanor, I
had
snuck into his house and nearly died upon triggering traps. “I’d prefer it if you didn’t, you know, hurt
me.”

He chuckled again. “I’m no monster. I’ll let you go.”

“Those traps could have killed me.”

“SOaP knows all about them. I reckoned whoever they sent with you could protect you.”

I didn’t completely buy it—especially considering the trap my necklace had saved me from—but couldn’t argue with it.

“Son, I have things under control. Trust me.”

“Then give me my emotion.”

To my surprise, he nodded. I held out my hand and stepped toward the desk, feeling cautiously victorious—like maybe my parents had been wrong about Nick.

But he shook his head. “I’ll give it back—but not yet.”

Of course.

“And truthfully, I won’t return your emotion. I’ll give you the brink I make out of it.”

My hopes rose again. The way he toyed with my emotions drove me nuts. “You’ll give it back after we’ve blown it up?”

“I will. I promise. I may need your help.”

He seemed sincere. I couldn’t argue. I felt trapped between him and SOaP. Who to trust? What to do?

“Why would you need my help?”

“Because the emotions we gathered tonight were created by you. That means the brink we make with it will be more powerful for you.”

“Priority.”

“I see they haven’t left you completely ignorant. Thank heavens.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“To prove my good intentions, I’ll release your friend.”

He reached out to the computer monitor on the desk, and rotated it toward me. When it had turned about halfway, he lowered his hand to the keyboard, and touched the space bar. It clicked. The display lit up—almost blinding in the darkness—and a web browser window came into view.

He muttered something under his breath, and reached for the mouse on the desk. He grabbed it, moved the cursor to the corner of the screen, and clicked to close the browser.

Now, I’d seen people react like this a dozen times when I’d walked in on them and they had a web page open that embarrassed them. Once, Sandra had been looking at a page about knitting. Another time, advanced calculus. And I’d once found my algebra teacher looking up the meaning of the word “variable.” So, I was used to taking in the content of a web browser as quickly as possible, and I did so before Nick could close it.

He had a Google Maps page open and focused on a desert labeled “Dugway Proving Grounds.” I only saw it for an instant, but that was all it took.

Nick cleared his throat and pointed to what the screen now displayed. A different video filled each quadrant of the monitor, showing hallways or rooms. In the lower right video, half a dozen people stood in a circle around Marti. Yellow emblems glittered in the air, casting light on her face, and shadows on the walls.

Abruptly, my heartbeat began to thunder in my chest. Its pace doubled from only a moment before.

Marti’s five-minute spell had ended. I had about one minute before I needed to meet her.

As if she would be there on time.

Chapter 26: Who to believe?

It’s always best to tell the truth. I make it a matter of policy.

-Nick Savage

“Marti!” I said, placing my hands on the table and leaning forward to look closer.

She looked okay, but worried. She had her hands spread wide apart, her lighter in one, a vial of brink in the other. Her purse hung from one shoulder.

“She’s fine,” Nick said. “And to show my goodwill toward you, I’ll let her go.”

I gave him a sharp look. “You would do otherwise?”

Looking at the monitor, he shrugged. “She’s a SOaP agent. An enemy. I’d be foolish to let my enemy go so that she could come back again.”

“What? You would kill her?”

He laughed. “I wouldn’t kill her. I might alter her brain so she couldn’t harm me, but I certainly wouldn’t kill her.”

“That doesn’t sound much better. What, you’d turn her crazy?”

“No. Erase her memories of spells. Maybe remove her ability to perform in front of a crowd. But I wouldn’t really harm her.”

He paused to let me watch the cameras. She looked worried. I peered closer. Tears wet her cheeks. Anger grew in me.

“Let her go.”

Nodding, he reached toward the keyboard again, and pressed one of the function keys. He raised his voice just a bit.

“Guards, let her go. Make it look like an accident.”

“Yes, sir,” came a voice from the monitor.

One of the guards, back to us, waved an arm to the left, drawing a straight line of brink. I had no idea what it meant, but it must have messed up the emblems they’d already drawn, and Marti must have understood it, because she leaped forward, yanking Hello Kitty out of her purse and lighting the brink form. Her speed surprised me. It was like she’d become some kind of super country-star ninja.

The emblems went up in flames. A flurry of fists and feet filled the screen.

Nick stood. “I suppose you need to narrowly escape my clutches.”

Marti and the guards fled from the scene on the monitor. I backed toward the door. Clearly I wouldn’t get my emotions back tonight. Nick started to come around the desk. I didn’t want to turn my back to him, and stood frozen. He stopped and shook his head.

“I’ve changed, Richie. I now understand what the world is up against. I see that we all have to fight it. I wouldn’t even be SOaP’s enemy, anymore—if they would leave me alone. What do I have to do to convince you that I’m a friend?”

“Give me back my emotion.”

“I can’t do that, son. Not yet.” His face became pained. “You’ve got to trust me. Think about the people you’re mixed up with. Think about how they’ve used you. They sent you here with nothing more than a newbie agent with questionable skills—you saw her captured—and perhaps only a diffuser for defense.”

The stone felt heavy in my pocket.

“You could’ve easily been hurt.” He pointed at the cabinet where I could feel the emotion pulsating. “If you’d tried to open that cabinet, you would’ve triggered a spell that the diffuser couldn’t have protected you from.”

“She said there were no more traps.”

He shrugged. “Do you think they care that much about the emotion? They used you as a distraction.” He pointed at the screen. “So they could steal the Tangle Rope from me.”

“She said it belongs to SOaP.”

“They stole it from me. I ask only that you trust me a little longer. If you do, you’ll see that I speak the truth.”

I stayed frozen, though I knew I needed to hurry. I wished for Marti’s heart-calming spell, again.

“Now, I’m going to let you go, son. And I’m going to ask a favor of you. In order to make your brink as powerful as possible, we need something, and I can’t get it. Intersoc stole it from me—just like SOaP stole the Tangle Rope that I managed to recover. But if you can get this thing for me, we can make your brink far more powerful than anything anyone has ever made.”

“Why?” I said. Why would anyone want such a powerful tool?

“So we can defeat the Solar Flare.”

“You keep saying that, but you don’t tell me what it means.”