Rise of the Darklings (21 page)

T
he library opened into another carpeted corridor. Immediately to their left was a huge, iron-bound door that looked like it belonged in a dungeon. A keyhole as long as her finger was set into the pitted wood.

“Don’t ask me to pick that,” whispered Jack. “I don’t have the tools big enough.”

The rest of the corridor was lined with more normal-looking doors. One of them was open and Emily peered nervously inside, but she found nothing more than a cramped, untidy office.

Emily was rather disappointed. She had expected something a bit more dramatic from the offices of a centuries-old secret society charged to seek out and destroy the creatures of Faerie.

“Which one?” asked Jack in a low voice. There was no sign of the young man, but he had to be around somewhere.

“Um …” Emily thought. “I’m not sure, actually. Probably that one.”

Jack pointed to the end of the corridor, where a single mahogany door faced them, the most daunting of all the doors in the corridor—besides the iron-bound one. “There?”

“Why not?”

They crept along the corridor. When they got about halfway, Emily heard a voice muttering inside one of the offices. That must be where the young man was.

They reached the last door and Jack bent down and peered into the lock. “No problem,” he whispered. “I’ll have it open in a second.”

“You mean like the last one?”

Jack gave her a wounded look. “I would have cracked it eventually. These things just take time.”

“Just get on with it.”

Jack heaved a theatrical sigh. “You’re a very hard girl to impress, do you know that?”

Emily opened her mouth to retort, but Jack just raised his hands in surrender and got to work. True to his word, he had the door open in a few seconds.

“Easy,” he said, getting to his feet again. “It’s not even a new lock. It’s over ten years old, that.”

He opened the door, revealing a large office that was almost the same size as the library. An ancient-looking desk dominated the center of the room, its dark wood carved and etched with elaborate designs. Jack whistled when he saw it.

“That would fetch a shilling or two to a collector. I wonder how heavy it is.”

“We’re here for a reason, Jack,” said Emily nervously. She was staring at the desk. There was a stovepipe hat sitting in the center of the wood. Ravenhill’s hat.

“Just thinking out loud, that’s all. So where is this stone of yours?”

Emily tore her gaze away from Ravenhill’s hat. “Actually, I don’t think the stone’s in here.”

Jack frowned at her. “Then what are we doing, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Looking for a key to the vault where it
is
kept.”

“Ah.” Jack looked around. “Any ideas?”

Emily also glanced around. Paintings and bookshelves lined the walls. To the side of the desk, there was a filing cabinet and a massive globe of the world. A map of London hung on the wall opposite the desk, with little pins sticking into it in various locations. The key could be anywhere.

“You start with the desk,” Jack said, lifting the painting closest to him and checking behind it. He moved to the next
while Emily walked around the vast desk and tried the top drawer.

It slid easily open, but all it contained were papers, some new, some old and yellowing. She closed it again. The next drawer was locked. The one underneath opened partway, then stuck. Emily peered inside but couldn’t see anything of interest.

“Emily!”

She looked up and saw that one of the paintings Jack was checking had swung away on a hinge to reveal a small safe.

“Can you open it?” she asked.

“Maybe.”

Jack leaned forward to inspect the safe. Then he unrolled his packet of tools and took out a crowbar, which he inserted between the wall and the safe. He pushed on the bar, stopping when the safe scraped out slightly from its hiding place.

“I need some cushions,” he said. “Something soft.”

Emily ran over to a couch next to the filing cabinet and dragged all the cushions over to Jack. He arranged them beneath the safe.

“This might make a bit of noise,” he said. “But I need to get the safe out so I can spring the rivets. Promise not to shout at me?”

“Depends on how much noise it makes,” said Emily nervously, glancing at the door.

Jack applied pressure to the crowbar, and the safe slowly slid out of the hole in the wall. It teetered on the edge, then dropped heavily onto the cushions with a resounding
thunk!
Emily hurried to the door and cracked it open. No sign of anyone coming to investigate the noise.

She closed the door. Jack now had a chisel out and was holding it against one of four rivets on the top of the safe.

“See, most people try to get in through the door, but that’s a common mistake. On these older safes the seals are the weak points. Just be thankful this wasn’t a Milner safe. One of those would take hours to crack.” Jack hefted a small hammer and glanced at Emily, eyebrows raised questioningly. She nodded quickly, and Jack struck the rivet one sharp blow. The head of the rivet flew off and smacked the wall.

They both winced at the noise of the hammer. Surely someone had heard that?

“Hurry up. Get it over with.”

Jack nodded and quickly hit each of the three remaining rivets. After the last one was broken, they strained their ears, barely breathing as they listened for any sounds that would indicate discovery.

There was nothing for a while, and Emily started to believe they had actually gotten away with it.

Then she heard a door slam in the corridor beyond.

Emily hurried over to the door. She didn’t open it this time, but bent down to peer through the keyhole.

She almost cried out in shock when she saw Ravenhill’s distinctive silhouette in the corridor beyond. He was standing at the open door of the young man’s office, and she thought she could hear their low voices.

“Jack!” she whispered over her shoulder.

Jack was trying to pry the top of the safe off, but was having some difficulty. Emily dared not speak any louder. She ran across the thick carpeting and grabbed him by the shoulder.

“Jack, it’s him. Ravenhill. He’s coming.”

“Hold on, Emily. I’ve almost got it.”

“There’s no time!”

“Just a bit longer,” said Jack, tapping the chisel gently. He looked over at her. “If anything goes wrong, head back to the coffeehouse. All right?”

Emily nodded. She hurried back to the door and put her eye to the keyhole …

 … to find Ravenhill standing directly in front of the door, his leg only inches away.

Emily jerked back her head in shock. She watched as the door handle moved downward. The click of the latch releasing sounded as loud as a gunshot. She turned to warn Jack, but he was carefully lowering the top panel of the safe
onto a cushion. He turned to her with a grin of triumph, a grin that quickly vanished when he saw the door slowly opening.

This was it. Ravenhill could simply kill them both now; no one would be any wiser. Would he go that far?

Emily thought he would. She could see Ravenhill’s shoe as it swung slowly forward to enter the office.

“Mr. Ravenhill.”

The door stopped moving. Emily watched the booted foot retreat and come down on the landing outside. Then it swiveled around.

“Mr. Ravenhill!”

Emily peered through the gap in the door and saw the young man hurrying down the hall, gesturing for Ravenhill’s attention.

“What is it, Sebastian?” asked Ravenhill.

Emily could not suppress a shudder of fear at the sound of that voice.

“Hsst!”

Emily turned to see Jack signaling frantically for her to hide. She scrambled to her feet as Jack darted behind the couch. Emily looked quickly around the office. There was a set of curtains behind the desk. She ran forward and slid behind the thick velvet material.

And not a moment too soon. She had just stilled the
curtains (keeping a tiny gap so she could see) when Ravenhill entered the room.

As soon as he did so, Ravenhill stopped moving. He frowned, tilting his head upward and testing the air with his nose.

Then he turned slowly and stared directly at the mess on the floor.

He lunged across the floor and examined the safe, but luckily Jack had managed to replace the top panel so that the safe still appeared to be sealed. Ravenhill fished around in his pocket and pulled out a key. He inserted it into the safe door and was about to unlock it when Jack suddenly popped up from behind the couch and sauntered across the carpet.

Emily’s eyes widened in amazement. Ravenhill’s head turned slowly to follow Jack’s movements. Emily could almost feel the shock radiating from him. Jack stopped in front of the door and turned to face Ravenhill. A cocky grin appeared on his face.

Ravenhill and Jack stayed frozen like this for a few seconds, neither of them moving. Then, as if on some kind of hidden signal, they both moved at the same time. Jack turned and yanked open the door, sprinting out into the corridor. Ravenhill yanked out the key and surged to his feet, no more than a few steps behind.

Emily was alone.

She let out her breath in an explosive gasp, then slipped out of her hiding place. Jack had sacrificed himself as a diversion, and she had to move quickly to make sure it wasn’t in vain. She just hoped he was fast enough to escape Ravenhill’s clutches.

She hurried to the safe, unable to keep a smile from her face. He’d done it. Despite all his cocky, annoying ways, Jack had actually done it.

Emily pried the top panel loose with the crowbar Jack had left lying on the floor. There were a few yellowing documents piled inside, but she ignored them and pulled out a ring of keys hidden at the bottom. There were three keys on the ring, two large and one small. According to Corrigan, one of these would open up the door to the vault, and inside the vault she would find the stone. Emily assumed one of the others was for the door at the end of the corridor outside.

She grasped the keys tightly and hurriedly left Ravenhill’s office, praying she would never have to step inside again.

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN