Inkcaster (Library Gate Series Book 4)

by H. Duke

  From the uncertain look on Jekyll’s face, April thought he was going to say that they shouldn’t give him the antidote now, because he wanted to study the ink rot.

  But then he nodded. “You’re right. It seems he won’t be able to take the serum… orally, at least.”

  “There’s another way to administer it?” Thaddeus asked.

  Jekyll nodded. “In theory. I originally considered administering the serum intravenously. I thought it might be more effective that way, and the effects would begin sooner. Little did I know that neither of those things would be a problem, even when the serum is taken orally. In fact, if it’s taken through an injection, the change might happen so quickly that it sends the subject into cardiac arrest.”

  “Do you think administering it to him might kill him?” April asked doubtfully. She wasn’t sure that she wasn’t okay with that possible outcome.

  “I doubt it. He’s taken so much that it may be the only way for it to be truly effective.”

  “Great,” Thaddeus said. “Do you have any syringes?”

  “No,” Jekyll shrugged. “Like I said, that plan was scrapped from the beginning.”

  “Is there any place that we can get them nearby?” Thaddeus said, becoming frustrated.

  “Perhaps in one of the city hospitals, but it’s a very experimental form of treatment, so no guarantees.”

  April snapped her fingers. “There are syringes in the library. I saw them in the first aid kit. We keep them around in case we need to administer insulin to a diabetic customer.” She ignored Jekyll’s look of confusion at the mention of the library.

  “Perfect,” Thaddeus said. He wasn’t looking at her, but down at the street below. “There’s only one problem.”

  “What’s that?” April said. She and Jekyll went and stood in the window next to him.

  “He knows we’re here.”

  It was true. From the street, the thing that had once been Officer Powers was staring up at them, an evil grin on his face.

  “Come down, wee ones,” he called. “Then you can play hide and seek with me and the girl.”

  Thaddeus’ eyes became fearful. “Does he have her?” he asked Dr. Jekyll.

  Dr. Jekyll shook his head. “From what I heard, he sniffed her out in a hedge near the Carew mansion… but she managed to slip away. He’s big and strong and as ill-tempered as they come, but he’s awkward and slow. His skeletal system isn’t able to support that much mass, I’ll wager.”

  The worry didn’t leave Thaddeus’ face.

  “Hey,” April said. “We’ll find her, okay? I promise. But first we have to deal with him. How are we going to get past him so we can get the syringe?”

  “That’s not your only problem,” Jekyll mused. “If you manage to get past him and access this mysterious supply of syringes, you’ll then need to administer the shot. And that won’t be easy, because I guarantee that he will fight the entire way.”

  “Maybe…” Thaddeus said, pausing a moment as though considering whether he wanted to say what he had planned. “Maybe I have a way we can solve both problems.”

  “Oh?” April said, raising an eyebrow. “I’m all ears.”

  Thaddeus reached inside his coat, but this time he didn’t bring out the vials. Instead, he brought out a magic wand—Mason’s magic wand, she realized. The one she’d been keeping in her desk.

  “How did you get that?” she said. “Why did you get that?”

  “I got it when I went into your office earlier,” he explained. “I remembered you retrieving it from the desk before I cast the wards. Your desk drawer really isn’t the most secure place to keep this, by the way.”

  “My desk drawer happens to be in one of the few places in the entire city the Agency can’t access,” April snapped, “But why am I the one getting defensive? You didn’t answer my second question. Why do you have it?”

  “I thought we might need it,” Thaddeus said, then he shook his head. “No. That’s not true. I planned to use it to disable you and the others so I could save Sara.”

  “Typical,” April said. Why was she feeling such hurt? Was it because she felt like she and Thaddeus had had some sort of deep conversation in Jekyll’s laboratory? It was just another act. She’d known it, and it had still gotten to her. “You’ll never change, will you?”

  Thaddeus shook his head. “I don’t know. But I know that I’m telling you the truth now. I could use this wand to stop you, find Sara, and then leave this place, this world be damned. We know how the rules of balance work—I could take her back and leave you here and the worlds would be balanced.”

  “That would destroy this world!”

  “I told you, I’m not doing it,” Thaddeus said through gritted teeth. “Listen to me. I’ll use the wand to freeze William the Brutal. I’ll stay behind and hold him while you get the syringes. You administer the serum, then we get Sara and get the hell out of here.”

  “Spell? I’m sorry,” Jekyll attempted to cut in, “You don’t mean that that’s a magic wand, do you? Because that’s utterly—"

  April raised her hand to cut him off, and he fell silent. “How?” she asked, taking a step towards Thaddeus. “How can I possibly trust you not to stab me in the back?”

  “You don’t have any choice.”

  April thought for a moment. “I could give up on you. I could leave you here and take someone out there back with me to balance the worlds. Then I’d throw The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde back through and not care what happened to you and anyone in here.”

  Thaddeus shook his head. “You won’t do that, though. Here.” He handed her the wand, and she took it.

  “Why are you giving me this?”

  “So that it can be your choice. I haven’t been trustworthy, not at all. But I’ll start. For some reason we have been brought together. For better or worse, we need to learn to work together.”

  April stared down at the smooth wand in her palm. She knew she shouldn’t trust him. She had no reason to. She searched inside herself to see what the gate had to say on the matter, but it was silent.

  “If I do this,” April said, “If I trust you, it’s a two-way street, do you understand? You need to trust me, too.”

  He started to nod, but she added, “that means trusting Randall and Dorian.”

  Thaddeus’ expression soured at the prospect of having to trust Dorian, but then he nodded. “You have a deal.”

  “Wait, I’m not done yet. It starts with the girl. You have to trust that we’re telling you the truth when we say that she’ll be fine.”

  Thaddeus thought longer before nodding his time. “Okay.”

  “That means we take her back to her scene after this is all done,” April clarified.

  Thaddeus again nodded. “I know. It’s better than whatever he has planned for her.”

  Dr. Jekyll was looking out the window. “I’m not sure that I understand what you are talking about, but if you have a plan, you should enact it now. He’s attempting to enter the house.”

  They glanced down out the window. William the Brutal was, in fact, approaching the entrance to Jekyll’s house as though he meant to come inside.

  “How will he fit?” April asked. It didn’t seem possible.

  “By breaking things,” Jekyll said with a grimace.

  “Let’s go,” Thaddeus said. “As soon as he’s immobile, run back to the portal and grab the syringes. I’ll hold on for as long as I can, but this spell requires concentration. If it gets broken, or if I’m rendered unconscious…”

  “That won’t happen,” April said. “Let’s go.”

  They moved down the stairs as quickly as possible. William the Brutal was peering inside the doorway. He grinned when he saw them, revealing sharp, uneven teeth.

  “Come out, little ants,” he said. April wondered how he was able to talk with the ink rot covering his mouth. His voice was muffled, but not as much as it should have been.

  “Let’s get outside before he blocks us
in,” Thaddeus said, but then he squinted. “Actually, it might be better if he is in the doorway. I’ll try to freeze him here. That way he won’t be able to see what you’re doing, and when you come back with the syringe, he won’t see you coming with it.”

  “I thought you said this spell will hold him in place so he can’t move,” April said.

  “It will,” Thaddeus said, “But he can fight the spell. And if there was ever someone with will enough to fight this, it’s that thing outside.” He frowned. “You’ll have to go out through the laboratory. Here. You’ll need this.” He pulled off his coat and draped it over her shoulders. He was several inches taller than she was, so the bottom of the coat nearly dragged on the ground.

  “The vials of serum are in the right inner pocket.” He breathed out. “Let’s do this.”

  He raised the wand and muttered a series of syllables under his breath that April couldn’t make out. A jolt of kinetic energy flew down Thaddeus’ arm and into the tip of the wand, then out towards the creature in the door.

  William the Brutal had just started to raise his arm—to what? Grab them? Pull himself through the doorway?

  But moments later it was frozen in midair. Whatever magic Thaddeus was using must only have worked on his body, because the monster was able to turn his head to look at his arm, now held aloft in the air like that of a statue.

  “What type of science is this?” he said, then his eyes moved back towards Thaddeus. “You’ll pay for that.” The muscles in his neck began to bulge. His feet and legs, which moments before had been statue-still, began to quiver, but remained glued to the ground.

  “What are you waiting for?” Thaddeus said. “Go!”

  As he said these words, William the Brutal moved his left foot forward an inch, as though Thaddeus speaking had lessened his hold on the monster. Thaddeus gritted his teeth, and the monster’s progress ceased.

  April didn’t need to be told twice. She ran off in the direction of the door that led to the laboratory. She burst through it, then out into the street. She took only a moment to make sure that William the Brutal was still held fast in front of Jekyll’s door. He was, but his legs shook like those of a body builder trying to push a dump truck.

  All the while he was talking, but April didn’t take the time to stop and hear what he was saying.

  She burst back through the gate.

  “What happened?” Randall said, rising and moving closer to her. “Where’s Thaddeus? Why are you wearing his coat?”

  Dorian stood as well, then immediately sat back down. “He tried something, didn’t he? I knew we couldn’t trust him. You should have let Randall—”

  “He’s fine,” April said. “I mean, you’re right. He was going to betray us, but then he changed his mind—”

  “WHAT?” Dorian and Randall yelled in unison.

  “He brought the wand,” she said. “He stole it out of my desk. We couldn’t give the serum to—” she stopped. She didn’t have time for this. “Just trust me, okay? I’ll explain later. We have everything under control, but I need the syringes from the first aid kit.”

  Neither of them moved; they only continued to give her disapproving looks.

  “Now!”

  Randall began to move. “This plan of yours better work.”

  “It will.” It had to.

  “Good.” He walked over to the first aid kit which was still on the table in front of Dorian. He moved a few things around then pulled out a handful of syringes, each individually wrapped in sterile plastic.

  “Make sure you tap out the air bubbles,” he said. “I’ve seen a lot of heroin users die from embolisms.”

  “To be honest, I’m not that worried about him dying of an embolism,” April said. “If we can get Sara back where she belongs, all of this will be no more than a bad dream, anyway. We just need to get rid of William the Brutal so we can get her.”

  “And you believe that Thaddeus is going to let you take her?” Randall said. He still held onto the syringes and hadn’t yet relinquished them to her grip.

  “I don’t know.” She hoped he would, but she wasn’t stupid. Thaddeus had betrayed her before, and would likely do so again. “But I’ll deal with that when the time comes.”

  “Do you still have Silvis’ gun?” Randall asked.

  She nodded.

  “Good.” He let the syringes slips into her hand, and she turned back and ran through the veil.

  Chapter 8

  “You’re no match for me,” William the Brutal taunted. He’d managed to flex his fingers. “I can feel whatever you’ve done to me dulling my will. But I have been freed. The doubts and morals that most people fall prey to, that make them unable to act, that make them susceptible to influence, are gone. And they’re never coming back.”

  Oh, they’re coming back, Thaddeus said. As soon as April gets here… it seemed like forever since she’d left. But then again time in the library moved more slowly, didn’t it? She might be there for less than a minute, but here it would be much longer.

  Would he be able to last long enough? He could hear Rex at his feet—he hadn’t even realized the dog had stayed with him—whining and growling at the monster.

  Thaddeus’ will slipped as doubt crept in. He’d never be able to last long enough…

  No. He couldn’t let his resolve weaken. His mother was a wielder, wasn’t she? He of all people should be able to hold this spell!

  He retreated into himself. He thought of his father and imagined what his mother had been like. These thoughts didn’t distract him; in fact, they lent him an unexpected but needed strength.

  Thaddeus opened his eyes to check on William the Brutal. He hadn’t managed to make any more progress on his range of motion, but the veins in his neck and arms continued to bulge out of his skin.

  Sensing the halt in progress, he grimaced, baring his teeth as he strained harder.

  Strain all you want, Thaddeus thought smugly. It will only tire you out. He closed his eyes again, retreating to the sanctuary that he’d created in himself.

  An indefinite amount of time later he was prompted to open his eyes. It felt like being tapped gently on the shoulder. He knew it was the unseen hands of the portal. It wanted him to see something.

  A form caught his eye through the windows. April.

  He felt his spirit bolster. He’d made it. They were going to—

  His hold on the spell slipped, and William the Brutal stepped forward triumphantly. Thaddeus panicked as he reached again for the magic. He could feel it slipping through his fingers like an object you’re almost able to catch after you drop it…

  But then he managed to take hold again.

  Stupid, he admonished himself. Don’t celebrate before you have a victory! You’re not done yet.

  He steeled himself and held on.

  ~~~

  Relief flooded April’s heart. William the Brutal was still held immobile in front of Jekyll’s house. But he stood closer to the doorway than he’d been when she’d left. She had to hurry.

  She couldn’t see Thaddeus through the doorway because the monster’s girth blocked him from view. She hoped the fact that he was still holding the monster at bay meant that he was all right.

  A small tickle in the back of her brain said that she should be worried that Thaddeus had lied to her. Maybe it wasn’t true that he had to concentrate on the spell. What did she really know about magic, after all? What if he was off doing something?

  Her step quickened, and she bent down so she could peer between the monster’s legs.

  “Thaddeus?”

  He stood just inside the house, exactly where she’d left him, a pained expression on his face.

  “Can’t talk,” he said through gritted teeth. “A little busy…”

  Even as he said these words, William the Brutal moved forward a half step, putting the tip of the wand less than a foot away from his outstretched arms. Thaddeus stopped talking, and his face screwed into an intense look of concentrati
on.

  Thaddeus didn’t speak or look at her again, but she imagined that if he did, he’d tell her to hurry up.

  She pulled the vials out of the coat pocket. She admonished herself for not loading the syringe the first time, but she’d been so worried that Thaddeus would lose concentration while she was gone that she hadn’t.

  “What’re you doing back there, girlie?” William the Brutal said, his voice even more garbled than before, as though the ink rot had made its way into his mouth and down around his vocal cords, choking them. Not that it bothered him. Did he even know it was there?

  “Giving you a chill pill,” she muttered. She pulled the cork off one of the vials, stuck the needle into it, and then drew up the amber liquid. She did the same with the other vials, until they were empty. She re-stoppered them and then dropped them back into the coat pocket. She thought of Randall’s warning, and tapped the air bubbles up to the top of the syringe, pushing the lever up until a few drips of amber liquid sprayed out of the end. Ready.

  She looked up at the monster. She’d need a vein for the fastest delivery of the stuff. Luckily, he seemed to have lost his desire to change his clothing along with his morals and the book’s influence, and most of his clothes—except for the scrap of his pants hanging over his groin—had burst at the seams. Even luckier, several veins running along his legs were sticking out of his body as he strained against Thaddeus’ spell.

  April raised the needle and readied to plunge the needle into the vein, readying herself for his inevitable pushback, when a small voice spoke from behind her.

  “Miss, what are you doing?”

  April lowered the syringe and looked towards the source of the voice. A small girl with mouse-brown hair looked up at her. April hadn’t seen her, but she knew immediately who she was.

  “Sara?” she said, not believing.

  The girl ignored her and turned towards Thaddeus, whose eyes widened when he saw her.

  “You were gone for almost two days,” Sara said, her wet eyes trembling. “I got cold and hungry. I had to go find something to eat. I snuck into my house and slept underneath my bed where my parents would never think to look for me.”