Girls Can't Be Knights: (Spirit Knights Book 1) (16 page)

Claire gulped. “We were hoping you’d have one.”

“Mine went so perfectly, I can’t see how another one could possibly fail.” Justin rolled his eyes and sighed. “You shouldn’t be here. It’s not safe.”

She stuck her chin out. “I can take care of myself.”

“Avery’s in the building.”

“Oh.” Sparks of fear flashed out to her fingers and toes. “I was worried about you. Tariel is too.”

“I’ll be fine.”

He seemed so distant. Her shoulders slumped and she looked away. “I guess…I guess you kinda regret picking me up the other day.”

“No.” He sighed again. “Not even a little, and not for a second. Look, since you’re here anyway, Avery—” He flicked his eyes past her shoulder, then he spat out the first swearword she’d ever heard him say. “Protect Claire and the locket,” he hissed at Drew.

He lurched to his feet and charged despite his chains. Claire turned to watch in stunned horror as he plowed into Avery and he two men tumbled away from the door together. She grabbed Drew’s hand and yanked it, pulling him to the exit. They raced out together, hit the door for the stairwell, and ran up.

“Where’re we going?”

“I’m not sure!” Claire burst through the door to the ground floor and snapped her head back and forth in a panicked rush to see everything at once. Cops turned to stare at their unexpected entrance. She blushed and shuffled to the front door again. The thought crossed her mind that Avery might have files on Justin at his desk that she could destroy. He’d be busy downstairs for a while, and she might not get another chance to do it. Besides, Justin had been about to suggest something. Based on what she knew of him, it had to have been an idea like hers.

She whirled and marched to the front desk again. “Excuse me. Um, where can I find Detective John Avery’s office?”

The woman raised an eyebrow at her. “Third floor.”

“Thanks.” She walked to the stairs again, trying to project calm purpose and not alarm anyone. When she reached them, she ran up with Drew on her heels. On the third floor, she recognized the hallway to the side. It had the closet they’d used to see her dad. Drew pointed her to a secretary beyond it, who directed them to Avery’s office and said they could wait there for him.

The room had a metal desk surrounded by filing cabinets, plus files stacked on the desk. It had no personal items, not even a single picture. Nothing but files, files, and more files. Claire shut the door behind them and frowned. “Jeez. How do we even start looking?” She noticed Justin’s sword in its sheath behind the door and picked it up. He’d need that.

“He’s probably got a system.” Drew went to the desk and picked up the top file of a stack. “Hey, this one is for that weird theft at the Historical Society museum. It has a picture of Justin.”

“Yeah.” Claire scanned the room. Seeing no labels, she picked a drawer at random and slid it open.

“What are we looking for?”

“Anything else with Justin in it.” She ran her fingers across the files, finding each had been labeled a single word and a date. These dates were all from ten to fifteen years ago. Dismissing that drawer, she moved to another one and flipped a finger across the dates. Nothing of interest.

On her sixth drawer, she stopped at a folder marked “Terdan” with the date her family’s house had burned down. Finding it here surprised and stunned her. Her first social worker had told her the insurance company classified the fire as an accident and set up a trust for the payout that she’d get access to when she turned eighteen. Why would a cop have a file for an accidental fire? She pulled it out, opened it up, and laid it on the desk. Drew, with two files in hand now, peered over her shoulder as she flipped through the pages.

This file painted a different picture than the one she’d been told. It had a report from an arson investigator and another from a crime scene investigator. Concerned that Avery might return at any moment, Claire skimmed the notes and documentation until she found summaries of their findings. Both declared the fire “most likely” to be arson. She brushed her finger across the signatures, feeling the indentations from a ballpoint pen that meant these must be originals.

Underneath those, she found photocopies of reports from the same two names, both also signed. These two reports had completely different data and notes, and the summaries indicated the fire had been an accident. More pages below it turned out to be handwritten notes. Her eyes picked out the word “Knight” several times, then she noticed the word “Phasm.”

Drew touched her shoulder. “Why would he have the reports faked?”

The more she read, the more she furrowed her brow. Justin hadn’t explained enough about Knights and Phasms yet for any of this information to make sense. “I don’t know. I think so he didn’t have to suppress how the fire really started. I could be wrong, because his handwriting is a kinda crappy, but I think he thought a Phasm killed my dad.”

“A what?”

“I’ll explain later.”

“Okay.” He put an arm around her to show her the file he’d found. “It looks like he’s been building a file against Justin for a while. There’s notes from stuff in Salem, Olympia, Seattle, Eugene, and another thing in Portland. Dates on his notes show he’s been putting it together for about two and a half years. He doesn’t have a last name or any idea where to find him, so he hasn’t picked him up yet. Not sure why he didn’t just enter Justin’s picture in the system and let the other cops find him.”

She flipped through the file, which had few official papers of any kind and only two pictures of Justin. “Not enough evidence, probably. Besides, he wanted me to do something specific, and I bet he wanted Justin to do it first. So he builds up a case, then arrests Justin and says he’ll make that all go away if Justin just does what he wants. I wonder if he’s trying the same thing right now, or if he’s got all his hopes pinned on me already.”

“What a whackjob.”

“Yeah. I guess maybe he wasn’t always one, since he had a wife and all. Justin called him ‘tainted.’ I wonder if someone can be
un
-tainted.” She wondered more if a Phasm could be un-corrupted.

“We should probably get out of here.” Drew snatched both folders away and tucked them under his shirt.

“Yeah.”

Chapter 26

Justin

By the time other cops waded in to stop the fight, Claire had disappeared. Justin kept as much of a hold on Avery as he could for as long as he could, to keep him busy. Hands pried them apart, and he felt a line of hot blood dribbling out of his nose. To his satisfaction, Avery doubled over, clutching his gut and panting.

So much for trying to convince Avery to return to the Knights. It had been worth it, though, to give Claire a chance to get free. Later, he’d tell her how proud he was of her for thinking of him, even if her plan had been stupid, incomplete, and fraught with far too much danger for her own good. He spat in the vicinity of Avery’s shoe, missing by an inch or two.

“Get them both to the infirmary,” someone barked.

In the infirmary, he stood a chance of getting himself free in a much simpler way than the one he’d have to use in a jail cell. Justin went limp and considered the best place to fake an injury that would get his hands loose. He groaned and curled around his wrist.

“I’m fine,” Avery growled. “Watch him.”

“Just let them check you over, Detective,” someone said. “You’re bleeding.”

Two large men picked Justin up and shoved him around until they reached a first aid suite. It had everything necessary to deal with minor injuries, including a woman in a lab coat. One cop thumped him in the chest to make him sit on the gurney.

“I think my wrist is broken,” he whimpered.

Avery glared at him. “He’s lying.” Another cop had helped him shamble down the hall and set him in a chair. “Faking it.”

“We’ll see.” The woman in the lab coat waved at the handcuffs, and one cop unlocked them.

With his hand now free, Justin surged to his feet and slapped the doctor so hard her whole body twisted. He dropped a shoulder and shoved it into the cop’s belly, managing to catch his solar plexus with the blow. The cop dropped to the floor, wheezing, and Justin grabbed his keys.

“See? Faking.” Avery leaned forward, a palm pressed to his head.

Keys in hand, Justin punched another cop in the face while the third pulled his gun. He ducked behind the woman and wrapped an arm around her neck.

She slammed a syringe into his thigh. “You guys are all the same,” she said with a disgusted sigh. Her thumb jammed the plunger down, filling his leg with numb heat.

As much as he hated to do it in front of normal people, Justin took a deep breath and called on the bond he shared with Tariel. The woman crossed her arms and waited for the drug to take effect. Disappointing her would make his day, but seeing Avery doing the same thing with his sprite ruined the feeling. Regardless, Tariel’s peculiar brand of power washed over him, burning away the drug and all his pain. He tightened his grip and circled around to put the woman between him and both the gun and Avery.

“You’re not going to get away,” Avery growled.

“I’m willing to risk it.” Justin dragged the doctor out of the triage clinic with the cop and Avery echoing his every step down the hallway. His sword would help a lot right now. So would his horse. He backed through a fire door, kicked it shut, and shoved the woman against it. With only one hand free, he had to use his body to hold her there as he unlocked his other hand and the chain around his waist. Thumping on the door told him he needed to hurry.

The woman watched him over her shoulder, eyes wide with frightened wonder. “How did you shrug that shot off?”

“Magic. I swear this is nothing personal, and I sincerely hope you’ll be fine.” He punched her in the back of the head, hard enough that she clonked into the door, then passed out. Hopefully, she’d wake up in a few minutes.

The pounding on the door stopped, and he suspected they knew a way to circle around behind him. He unlocked the chains on his feet and shucked them. Shoving the woman out of the way, he opened the door again and ran to a stairwell he’d seen on the way here. He hurtled up it, knocking someone aside, then burst out on the ground floor, where he saw Tariel taking up half the lobby with no Claire or Drew in sight.

Claire had had the option to walk out the front door and didn’t take it. She had to be wandering around inside the police station someplace, which meant Avery would find her. He scowled, turned on his heel, and marched back into the bowels of the building. He headed for Avery’s office, a place he hadn’t visited in years.

He tossed the stairwell door open on the third floor and stepped out as Avery walked out of the elevator. They each changed direction to intercept the other. Justin threw a punch; Avery ducked and threw his own. Justin caught him with a foot to the knee; Avery slammed him into a wall hard enough to dent it. While Justin recovered, Avery threw a fist into his gut, and he stumbled back.

This fight, he reflected, would be much easier with his armor. Avery had too much more skill and experience, and the cop would win if he couldn’t find some advantage. Justin blocked a kick with his forearm, then he charged Avery, jamming his shoulder into the other man’s chest and sending him tumbling over a desk.

“Justin!”

He snapped his head to the side and saw Claire standing in the doorway to Avery’s office, holding his sword. She tossed it. The sword was made from his own will and powered by his connection to the Palace. Though he couldn’t make it appear in his hand from anywhere, he could catch it by the hilt without looking. Swinging the silvery blade around, he took a defensive stance and watched Avery clamber back to his feet. Avery’s eyes darted to Claire, and Justin sidestepped to put himself between them.

“Claire, could you lock yourself in his office for a minute, please?”

“Uh, sure.”

Avery scowled and raised a baseball bat. “It’s time to settle this.”

“We could sit down and sing Kumbaya instead. Roast some marshmallows together.”

“Or I could beat you to death.”

“That doesn’t sound like fun to me. How about rock-paper-scissors?”

Avery answered by rushing him. The bat worked well enough, though Justin recalled Avery being most comfortable with a gun. It hadn’t been on his hip in the interrogation room, or later in the visitor’s area of the holding cell level. He’d probably left it in his office. Now Justin had him blocked off from that. Thank goodness, because a bullet would kill him without his armor.

The sword hit the bat with a thunk, hacking a small chunk of wood off. Justin gave a foot then took a foot, then pressed forward and was driven back, all the while chipping pieces off the bat with every strike. They ranged in an arc around the office door and Justin worried he’d be worn down before Avery lost the fire in his belly that goaded him to continue.

He’d have to take a chance and hope for the best. With his left hand, he threw a punch at Avery’s head and took a thump to the side from the bat. It hurt, but compared to the crap his father used to do, it was nothing. Emboldened by that thought, he ducked to the side of Avery’s swing, let him smash the bat into his thigh, and punched Avery’s face with the hilt of his sword.

Avery stumbled back, grabbing his nose, and Justin ignored the burning pain in his leg to stick with him, clocking Avery in the neck. The detective crumpled to the floor, and Justin hit him again for good measure.

“Claire!” The space, while clear now, would probably fill up with people soon enough. The office door opened and Claire popped her head out. Grabbing Avery by the hair, he asked her, “Which closet was it?”

Chapter 27

Claire

“Uh.” If she chose to be honest with herself, Claire had to admit she’d expected Justin to lose that fight. The sight of him triumphantly dragging Avery by his hair confused her enough that she stopped and stared.

Drew nudged her. “Are you okay?”

“Oh. Yeah, I, um, it’s that one over there.” She pointed and took two steps toward the closet door before turning around and kissing Drew. He hadn’t yet figured out what to do with his hands when she let go and looked into his eyes. “You did great, but you need to get someplace safe.”