by James Riley
And with that, Kiel knocked his hands up into the police officer’s, reversed the handcuffs, and latched them onto the officer’s wrists instead. Then he disappeared into the night, his black cape and clothes cloaking him in the fire’s shadows.
“Suspect escaping on foot!” one of the cops shouted into his radio. “We need backup!”
“He didn’t do it!” Owen shouted as an officer dragged him by his cuffs back to the police cars. “Why won’t you listen to me?”
The officer opened his squad car door and tossed Owen into the back, as even more sirens filled the air, and the whirring of a helicopter sounded from a far-off distance. A helicopter? The police officer jumped into the front seat and began fiddling with his computer.
“The guy who did this is named Doyle Holmes!” Owen shouted. “He kidnapped a friend of mine, Bethany Sanderson!”
The police officer frowned, then pushed some buttons on the computer screen. “I’d advise you to keep your mouth shut until you get to the station. Anything you say can and will be used against you, as I said.” The computer beeped, and he paused. “Also, there’s no record of a Bethany Sanderson in this town, so maybe come up with a better story next time.”
“What?” Owen said. “Of course there’s a record. She’s my classmate! Call her mom, she’ll tell you!”
“I have a Stephanie Sanderson, thirty-nine,” the police officer said. “No dependents, though.” He abruptly shifted the car into reverse and, without looking, slammed on the gas, narrowly missing the other squad car and two light poles. “Base, I’m coming in,” he said into the radio on his shoulder. “Have one of the arsonists from the library. Throw the book at this one.” The officer turned to glare at Owen. “He deserves it.”
Owen’s eyes widened, and he turned to the door, only to find it had no handle on the inside. Had Kiel been right? Was this a huge mistake?
And why was there no record of Bethany?
“Please believe me,” Owen said to the police officer. “My friend is in danger. This guy, Doyle Holmes, said that we’ve got two hours before we never see her again.”
“You might never see the friend who doesn’t exist again?” the officer said. “I’ll be sure to alert the FBI.”
“I’m serious!” Owen shouted as the officer slammed on the gas again, sending the car bursting out into traffic. Owen quickly grabbed the door’s arm rest just to hold on as the car weaved in and out of the few vehicles on the road this late at night, driving at least ninety miles per hour down the street. “She’s in real danger! This Doyle guy isn’t from around here!”
The police officer looked back at Owen, his eyes not even on the road as he continued to swerve. “Boy, you’re just really digging yourself in deeper, aren’t you?” he said, smirking.
Owen sighed and collapsed back against the seat, then glanced down at the watch on his wrist: 01:55:46.
Kiel had been right. This was a huge mistake.
But maybe that was okay. Kiel was still free, and he was a hero. He was probably out there right now, finding Bethany all on his own. Knowing Kiel, in fact, Bethany was probably free already!
CHAPTER 13
01:55:46
It took Bethany several minutes to realize that she wasn’t dreaming the sound of running water. She opened her eyes and immediately gasped.
She was in a room made entirely of cement, it looked like, though it was so dark she almost couldn’t see. The only light came from the ceiling, where grates let in streams of water. The room was empty except for large metal shelves against one wall, cameras in each corner, and whatever she was sitting on.
Bethany tried to stand, only to find she couldn’t move her arms or legs. Heavy chains were cuffed to her wrists, binding her to an old green chair with the cushions half missing, while her ankles were tied to the chair’s legs with rope.
Meanwhile, the water pouring through the grates in multiple waterfalls was starting to collect on the floor.
“Help!” she shouted, everything coming back at once. Owen and Kiel. Kiel’s forget spell. Doyle. Her heart began beating out of her chest, and she tensed, ready to jump.
“I wouldn’t,” said a voice from behind her, and a boy in a Sherlock Holmes hat and coat wearing a mask with a question mark, stepped into the light.
“Let me go!” Bethany shouted, pulling at the chains as hard as she could.
Doyle didn’t move. “I don’t believe I will. But please, feel free to escape.”
She bit her lip to keep from screaming at him. “Why are you doing this? I’ve done nothing to you!”
“Really?” Doyle said quietly. “What about humiliating my family, Bethany Sanderson? You’ve revealed our secret to the entire world. And maybe worst of all, you’ve presented me with a mystery I haven’t been able to solve. We can’t have that, now, can we?”
Bethany just stared at the detective as the water flowed into the room. He was insane. “Where are Owen and Kiel?”
“You won’t be seeing them again,” Doyle said. “I imagine they’re both being arrested as we speak. If I were you, I’d be far more concerned with what will be happening to you in”—he looked at his watch—“just under two hours.”
“Two hours?” she said. “What happens—” But she stopped midsentence, realizing she didn’t want to know.
“That’s when this room fills with water,” Doyle said, then glanced up at the ceiling. “Don’t worry, I had this room specifically modified so I’d know exactly how long it’d take. Of course, the water will rise above your head far before then if you’re still tied to the chair, so let’s say you have about a half hour, tops.”
Bethany’s eyes widened. “You’re trying to kill me?” she asked quietly.
“Me?” Doyle said, managing to look indignant despite his mask. “Of course not! I’m just providing motivation. After all, you can’t have a mystery without a motive. And you, Ms. Sanderson, are my only lead in solving your mystery.”
Jump, her mind said. Get out of here! Her whole body tensed, but she couldn’t. “This isn’t a mystery, Doyle. This is my life !”
Doyle waved a hand around. “What’s the difference? All of our lives are mysteries, Ms. Sanderson. What will we do at any given moment? How far will we go to get what we want? Who will we sacrifice to save ourselves? All mysteries, and I, for one, am excited to see their solutions.”
Bethany glanced up at the water flowing in. “You’re insane. This is a death trap! You’re acting like some kind of villain—”
Doyle leaped forward, his mask stopping within inches of her face. “Some kind? I’m the greatest villain,” he hissed almost too softly to hear. “But this isn’t a death trap. It’s a mystery!” He slowly stood back up. “A true classic, what we call a locked room mystery. How did the victim die when the murderer couldn’t get into the room? In this case, the murder weapon is water, and the victim is you, dying from drowning. The fun comes when you’re discovered, and the water has been drained.” He gestured around proudly. “You’ll have drowned in a dry room! Don’t you see how fun that’d be to solve?”
Bethany just stared at him in shock. “Why, Doyle?” she asked. “I paid you what you asked for.”
Doyle leaned back in. “Sometimes a story just needs a good villain,” he whispered, then stood back up. “But don’t think of this as punishment. It is, of course, but don’t think of it that way. This is an experiment! I’m here to learn from you. Whether you want me to or not.”
With that, Doyle turned and walked over to a small door in the wall, the rising water sloshing on the floor as he went. Bethany yanked on the chains again in frustration, then stopped. He might be crazy, but he still had his family to think about. “This is crazy, Doyle!” she shouted. “You know that. This isn’t worthy of a Holmes! What would your great-great-great-whatever-grandfather think?”
Doyle paused, then slowly turned back to her. “Nice try, Ms. Sanderson. I know what he’d think. My family’s known what he thought since that day at th
e waterfall.” He shook his head. “A flying man saved his life. That’s what he claimed, and for the next three years, he searched the entire world for the man, the secret of flight, anything. Three years. There’s nothing Sherlock Holmes couldn’t find in that time, but this was one mystery that defeated him, and he was never the same afterward. We all thought he’d lost his mind, that Professor Moriarty had beaten him.” Doyle pointed at her. “But no. It was you, you and Kiel’s Magister all along.”
Bethany’s eyes widened, remembering the Magister chasing her through books, and his flying form accidentally saving Sherlock Holmes from a fall over Reichenbach Falls. “We saved his life!” she shouted. “He might have died!”
“Better to die with one’s reputation than live without it,” Doyle said, and turned his back on her.
“I can just escape!” Bethany shouted, pulling on her chains. “You and I both know I can!”
“Please do,” Doyle said, his hand on the doorknob. “And my cameras will record it. Should be all I need.” He turned and faced her. “But we both also know what happens if you do. You’ll never see them again, Bethany Sanderson. You’ll have lost two more, just like you lost your father.”
Bethany screamed again in rage, pushing off the floor as hard as she could, almost toppling the chair she was chained to.
“I’d be careful not to fall over,” Doyle said, opening the door. “Wouldn’t want to drown in just six inches of water, would you?”
“I’m going to get out of this,” Bethany told him. “And I’m going to make you pay. Do you understand me?”
Doyle shrugged. “Just remember, you came to me. So whose fault is this, really? Like I said, life is a mystery, isn’t it? I never would have thought you’d break every one of your rules just to get what you wanted, but here we are. Who could have deduced that?”
Bethany gritted her teeth, holding back another scream.
“Good luck,” Doyle said, then closed the door behind him. Bethany heard some sort of spinning noise, and a huge lock clicked into place. And for the first time, she noticed she had a black band on her wrist that showed a countdown in red: 1:50:19.
Jump, jump, jump, jump, jump, her mind said.
No. Kiel and Owen would find her. Of course they would. Whatever trouble they were in, they’d find a way out of it. Owen was probably a huge fan of mysteries and had read them all. And Kiel was a hero! He’d know exactly what to do.
CHAPTER 14
01:50:07
Kiel Gnomenfoot, former hero to millions as the star of his own book series, current boy magician without any magic, had no idea what to do.
Things used to be so easy. There were keys to find, Charm to help him find them, and Dr. Verity to fight. But now there was this Doyle guy, Bethany was missing, and Owen had surrendered to the police at the very first chance he got, which just felt so wrong that it made Kiel’s stomach ache. Back on Magisteria, whenever the robotic Science Police had caught someone, that was it. You never saw them again.
Tended to leave a bad taste in one’s mouth about the police.
“We’ve got you surrounded!” shouted a voice from just a few feet away in the darkness. “Come out with your hands up!”
Usually, this would be the point where Kiel would cast some fun, probably ironic magic spell, then say something amazing, often with a wink and a grin. Charm seemed to appreciate that sort of thing, so Kiel made sure to push it, even when he was scared or uncertain. Even without magic, part of him wanted to take this police officer down, steal his radio, then spout off something snappy and daring, just so the police knew who they were dealing with.
But this wasn’t his world, or even a fictional one, so instead, Kiel inched his way back into the shadows. The roaring fire offered up lots of shadowy hiding spots as it consumed the library where Kiel, Bethany, and Owen had all met most nights to have exciting, dangerous, amazing adventures. Just like the last time, where they . . .
They what? Kiel couldn’t remember the last adventure they’d been on. For some reason he thought of the Magister, and . . . and a spell book. He rubbed his forehead, trying to bring that memory to the forefront. Why was it so hard to think of it? Clearly he was just too amazing at magic, if he’d erased his own memories this well.
He heard footsteps go by, and Kiel counted to five, then silently stepped out and made his way in the opposite direction. Overhead, a large flying carlike object with what looked to be a sort of halo above it floated loudly in midair, shining a light down onto the library’s grounds. As the light shifted closer, Kiel dove beneath a car, which had just enough room for him to fit easily.
This was all wasting time, and there was only an hour and forty-eight minutes left before something terrible happened to Bethany. The very idea left a hole in his stomach and made him want to punch something, and hiding when he should be looking for her made it even worse.
Still, it’d waste even more time if he got caught, so Kiel took a deep breath and stayed out of sight.
As soon as the flying car’s light passed, Kiel rolled out from beneath the car in what he hoped was an impressive way, then leaped to his feet and took off at a noiseless sprint in the direction he’d seen Doyle go right before the explosion. Bethany could be anywhere, but if Kiel got ahold of Doyle, this would all be over in moments, with or without magic.
Maybe more than a few moments. After all, Kiel planned on enjoying interrogating Doyle. Whoever he was.
Unfortunately, more police were flooding the grounds now, and it took longer than he’d have liked to make his way around to the other side of the burning library without being caught. Firefighters were also running everywhere, and steam rose from the roof as they sprayed the building with water.
If he still had his magic, he could have put out this fire instantly. Doyle would pay for that, too. While the library seemed to belong to Owen’s mother somehow, it still had given Kiel some pretty happy memories. Or at least, he thought it had. Granted, he couldn’t remember them now, but he was confident that they had been good.
As he moved, he reached out with his mind, trying to sense his spell book. Even when it was lost, he could at least pinpoint its general direction. That was part of the magic, after all. He was connected to his spell book, and it to him.
This time, though, he got no sense of the spell book at all. That wasn’t good.
Kiel reached the back door of the library and slowed to a stop, looking around for signs that anyone had passed by. The hard surface of the road wouldn’t show footprints, though, so Kiel moved on to the woods nearby, where the softer dirt would hopefully be more useful. The darkness obscured almost everything, though. Kiel wanted to scream to whoever was listening in either the fictional or nonfictional world how much he hated having to rely on his own eyes instead of just using magic, like the universe had intended.
The sound of footsteps pushed Kiel back into the trees, and he barely breathed, all his thieving skills coming back to him instinctually. Whoever it was stopped just a few feet from him.
“We got one of them, sir,” the voice said, then paused. Kiel waited, but the same voice spoke again. “No, the boy in normal clothes. Owen Conners. The other one, Kiel Gnomenfoot, got away.”
Kiel pushed forward an inch at a time until he could just make out the silhouette of a police officer speaking into his shoulder radio as he flashed a science torch through the air. Who was the officer talking to? And how did he know Owen’s name? Obviously he’d heard of Kiel, as everyone had. But that raised another question: Didn’t nonfictional police officers think that Kiel was just some heroic, amazing wizard from a series of books? This guy didn’t even seem the slightest bit surprised to be talking about a fictional person.
“I know you said this Kiel boy wasn’t dangerous and that the Conners kid was the one to worry about, but are you sure?” the police officer said, then stopped. “No, of course I didn’t mean to doubt you! I apologize, sir.”
What? Kiel Gnomenfoot not dangerous? And Owen Conner
s was the one to worry about? What sort of upside-down world was the nonfictional world?
Kiel loved Owen like a brother, of course, but dangerous wasn’t the first word that came to mind. And Kiel had taken down dragons, giants, and fire-breathing unicorns! Not dangerous?! Whoever was on the other end of the line was clearly not dealing with a full spell book.
“We’re taking the Conners kid to the station,” the police officer continued. “We’ll interrogate him there, and . . . no, you’re right. Whatever you say. This is your case, after all. Yes sir, I’ll keep you updated. Yes, sir, thank you, Mr. Holmes.”
Kiel’s eyes widened. Holmes? Doyle Holmes? Were the police working with the boy who kidnapped Bethany? Or was there another Holmes? Owen had mentioned a grandfather, so maybe there were more family members involved.
Of course, the Holmes family was also supposed to be fictional. Or was just Doyle fictional? Kiel shook his head. If Owen hadn’t surrendered, he’d be around to answer these questions, instead of letting them give Kiel more of a headache.
This would have been the perfect time for any number of spells, but instead, Kiel just waited until the police officer moved out of sight, then went back to searching the ground. Just as he was about to give up, the fire’s light lit up footprints in the dirt, leading away from the library.
Ah. Let’s see who was dangerous now, Doyle.
Kiel followed the trail through the woods and down through some backyards. The path struck Kiel as a bit familiar, but that wasn’t too surprising. He, Owen, and Bethany had gotten used to walking back and forth to the library at night for their adventures. Hadn’t they?
And then the footprints ended at a house, and Kiel skidded to a stop, sighing heavily.
Owen’s house. The footprints led to the back door of Owen’s house. He’d been following Owen’s footprints the whole time, probably from the last time they’d all jumped into a book, which was . . . recently? Maybe?
Kiel started back toward the library, then stopped. Doyle would be long gone by now, and the only thing back there were police. But without another clue, how exactly was he supposed to find Bethany or Doyle? Especially after wasting so much time following the wrong tracks?