Spinebreaker Read online

  Spinebreaker

  Book Two in the Pagewalker Series

  H. Duke

  Dear reader

  Thank you for reading Spinebreaker, the second book in the Library Gate Series.

  When you’re done reading, please leave an honest review because it helps readers like you find books they’ll love.

  Enjoy the story!

  -H. Duke

  Chapter One

  “Are you a golf man, Thad?”

  Mason’s folded hands rested on the desk in front of him. Mason’s home office always reminded Thad of the headmaster’s office at the British primary school he boarded at. Everything was made of polished wood and Thaddeus was only there when he was in trouble.

  Mason was the director of the agency’s midwestern division, and Thaddeus’ boss.

  Did Mason put the smallest chair possible in front of his desk on purpose? He liked to employ these little shows of power. Thaddeus’ knees were already cramping.

  “No, sir.”

  “It’s a wonderful game. Why, just last week—”

  Mason did this every time Thaddeus met him. He’d ask about a subject, and if Thaddeus showed even the slightest amount of interest, he’d move on to the next thing until he found something Thaddeus didn’t care to talk about, and then he’d talk about it at length.

  Thaddeus had learned to tune out, paying only enough attention to respond with yes sir, no sir, very good, sir, at the right moments. This wasn’t a conversation, it was a display.

  “Well,” Mason said after at least twenty minutes, “I suppose we should get to the matter at hand.”

  Thaddeus snapped out of his stupor. “Yes, sir.”

  Mason opened the report that Thaddeus had submitted the week before. “Your failure last week was unfortunate. What the heck happened? In your initial report you indicated that the Pagewalker agreed to our terms.”

  “She did,” Thaddeus said. “She renounced her status.”

  “So what went wrong?”

  “She changed her mind.”

  “You mean you allowed her to change her mind.”

  “Sir, I don’t see how I have any control over—”

  Mason raised his voice. “The building wasn’t secured. She and her group were able to infiltrate it.”

  “We apprehended them—”

  “At which point they were inadequately supervised and allowed to escape.” Mason folded his hands and considered Thaddeus gravely. “You held the portal in your grasp. The fact that you lost it is a testament to your incompetence. What would your father think?”

  Thaddeus winced at the mention of his father. He’d been working on decommissioning the last portal since before Thaddeus was born, and it wasn’t until shortly before his death that Thaddeus inherited it. His father had considered it his life’s greatest failure. He’d made Thaddeus promise that he would succeed where he’d failed. Thaddeus had ruined his opportunity to make good on that promise.

  Mason continued. “If you weren’t your father’s son, I would remove you from this project immediately.”

  Thaddeus’ head snapped up. He hadn’t let himself to hope that he’d be allowed to stay on the portal case. “Sir?”

  “You need to redeem yourself, of course.”

  “Anything. What do you want me to do?”

  “Simple. I want you to offer the Pagewalker a job.”

  What? He couldn’t be serious. “A job? Sir, I don’t think—”

  “With two civillians and a dog, she outsmarted your entire team. Now, doesn’t that sound like someone we want on our payroll?”

  Thaddeus shook his head. “She won’t agree.”

  “Oh, I think she may have cause to join us, considering recent events.” Mason opened his laptop and turned it around. A video was paused, showing the front entrance of the library.

  “What is this?” Thaddeus asked. “The library doesn’t have security cameras.”

  “This is footage from an apartment complex adjacent to the library—our techs were able to magnify it and clean up the resolution. It was taken the night after the incident. This is around nine fifteen.” Mason hit play. The doors opened and the Pagewalker and one of the men from that night, the character, Dorian Gray, stepped out.

  “Where are they going?”

  “Security footage from an ATM shows them walking into a bar a few blocks away. Now, if we jump ahead…” he clicked another button, and the image on the screen changed. In this frame, a man dressed in a white polo and black pants walked up to the door and unlocked it.

  “The library security guard,” Thaddeus said. “What’s he doing there?”

  “Just watch.” The next clip Mason played was from well past midnight. April and the character had returned to the library. They were now accompanied by the black man and his dog. Thaddeus now knew the man’s name was Randall Washington. They stumbled up the stone steps and entered the library.

  Mason forwarded through fifteen minutes of screen time, then hit play. The library doors burst open, and the Pagewalker stumbled out. Her hands were pressed over her mouth. She leaned over the railing and vomited. Washington came out of the doors behind her. They spoke for a few moments, then he led her out of view of the camera.

  “What happened?”

  “Just keep watching.” Mason increased the playback speed again. They watched until the sky began to lighten. No one else entered that door until staff arrived the following morning.

  “The security guard never came out,” Thaddeus said.

  “Bingo.” Mason said with a smile. “We’ve watched days of footage, and footage of the other entrances. He never left the building. We thought this was suspicious, so we sent agents to investigate during open hours. According to the daytime staff, he hasn’t reported to work since the previous night. They believe he skipped town.”

  “So either he slipped out unseen—”

  “Highly unlikely. We have footage from other entrances, as well.” Mason interjected.

  “—he entered a world, or he died.”

  “If he entered a world, a character would have to come out in his place before five in the morning, otherwise—” he spread his fingers wide to imitate an explosion. “We’ve cross-referenced all the videos. Every person who has come out of that library entered it. No one is unaccounted for except the security guard.”

  Thaddeus sat back in his chair. “So you think his death will motivate her to join us?”

  “It will have opened her eyes to the portal’s destructive nature. She was distraught in that video. She looks motivated enough to me. Or at least, motivatable. It’s your job to motivate her.”

  “How can you be so sure that the gate was involved in his death? You have no proof.”

  “Whatever happened, the portal was involved. If a bookshelf fell on him or he hanged himself, they wouldn’t have bothered to cover it up.”

  “What if she turns down the offer?”

  Mason’s eyes grew dark. “Then we will have to escalate our tactics. But I trust you won’t let me down.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Chapter Two

  Knock knock. “Sweetheart, someone is here to see you,” Gram’s voice penetrated through the wood of her bedroom door.

  April closed her eyes. Who would be coming here to see her? She hadn’t heard from any of her friends in months. They’d slowly disappeared after Gram got sick.

  “April? It’s Randall.”

  April’s eyes shot open. Randall? What was he doing here? Outside of her door, Gram said how nice it was for the library to send someone to visit sick employees. She cooed over Rex, saying how modern it was that the library allowed pets at work.

  April sighed. “Come in.”

  The door opened. Randall’s large frame filled the do
or. “I’ll go make some tea,” Gram said.

  “That would be lovely, ma’am,” Randall said. “We just wanted to check in on April and make sure she’s okay.”

  “That flu going around is a doozy,” Gram said. “Luckily the doctor said my immune system is still healthy enough that I can look after her.”

  April swallowed. She should be looking after Gram, not the other way around.

  Randall paused as he entered the room, and April could feel his gaze linger on the piles of clothes and blankets scattered across the floor. Thank God Gram had insisted on taking out the half-eaten bowls of soup.

  He sat in the rocking chair next to her bed. Rex lay down on the floor with a yawn.

  “Did Dorian send you?” April asked, not looking at him. “He’s called a couple times.”

  Randall shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since we found Andre.” he trailed off, and April knew what he was thinking. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the memory of walking back into the Werner Room, slightly tipsy from one too many beers at the pub, and finding Andre’s body on the floor, a bloom of bright red on his otherwise clean white work polo. It had spread out on the floor, like spilled Kool-aid…

  She pressed the base of her thumbs into her eye sockets hard enough to produce painful bursts of stars. She felt warm, furry pressure on her lap and when she opened her eyes she found that Rex had jumped up on the bed and was lying on her.

  “Hey,” Randall said. “Are you okay?”

  “Why did Andre come back?” April said. “He wasn’t supposed to be there.”

  Randall shook his head. “We don’t know,” he said. “We probably won’t ever know. That doesn’t change the fact that it wasn’t your fault.”

  “If I’d just let Thaddeus take the gate…”

  “You didn’t know what was going to happen. You did it to protect all those people in the books. To protect Dorian.”

  April blinked. She hated herself for it, but if she could go back and change her decision, trade the safety for all the people in the books for Andre, she’d do it in a hearbeat.

  “I just wish I could take it back,” she said. She kept thinking about that night. Whenever she managed to sleep, she had dreams about being in that moment, turning down Dorian’s proposition to go to the bar… but no matter what, Andre always walked in and got shot.

  Randall sat down on the edge of the bed next to Rex. He placed his hand on the dog’s head and was quiet for close to a minute.

  “I was on the front lines in Iraq,” Randall said. “One night, I was patrolling the perimeter with one of the guys. His name was Brad. This local boy comes up to us asking for a drink of water in broken English. Kid was ten, maybe eleven. Brad didn’t want to help him—it was against protocol—but I thought, this is just a little kid. How would I feel if my daughter was thirsty and some jerk didn’t give her a drink?”

  April blinked. “I didn’t know you have a daughter,” she said.

  Randall looked up, surprised. “Yeah, I do. She’s a little older than you, married, two children. You dropped me at her house that one time.” He looked away.

  “What happened with the boy?” April asked, partially because she wanted to know and partially because she could sense that Randall didn’t want to talk about his daughter.

  Randall swallowed, and his fingers tightened around Rex’s fur. “Our canteens were empty—we were almost done with our shift—so I walked back to the patrol station to refill mine. I got five steps away when the explosion went off. Threw me clean off my feet. I was the lucky one. My partner…” he trailed off.

  April was silent. She thought back to that night. She’d been so caught up in her own reaction to finding Andre that she hadn’t paid much attention to Randall. But he’d been freaked out too, hadn’t he? Rex had had to calm him down, much like he wa doing with her now,

  “Why are you here, Randall?”

  Randall scratched his stubbly chin. “Mostly to make sure you’re okay.”

  “Mostly?”

  “Well, I know how easy it is to fall into something and not be able to get out of it. I’m still not out of it all the way.” He looked at her pointedly. “So are you okay?”

  “I’m sick.”

  By the look he gave her, Randall was not convinced. He looked like he might say something else, then nodded. “I’m around if you need me.”

  He rose, and before he could leave, April asked, “Do you think I should go back?”

  He turned towards her. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know. I feel sick whenever I think about it. I don’t know if I can.”

  Randall nodded, and stood. “I’ll support you whatever you decide to do. Take your time, but the longer you wait, the harder it will be.” He stood up. “I’ll see you soon either way.”

  “Bye,” April said, but he’d already closed the door. She could hear the occasional murmur from the living room. Gram must have made good on her promise of serving him tea.

  She sighed. She’d already made her choice, hadn’t she? She’d chosen to fight for the gate, and now she needed to keep to that decision. She tried to tell herself that if she had let Thaddeus take the gate, even more people would have been hurt.

  But thinking this didn’t make her feel better. That was a numbers game, and Andre hadn’t been a number.

  ~~~

  April sat in her car, staring up at the library. It seemed ominous now, no longer just an average brick building barely worth noticing. Maybe she should just start the engine and go home.

  “April!”

  April turned towards the sound of her name to see Becky hurrying towards her. She sighed and got out of the car.

  “Hi, Becky.” April tried to smile, but she could tell by the look on Becky’s face that it wasn’t convincing. “Do I look that bad?” April asked.

  “You look… tired,” Becky said kindly. “Are you sure you’re feeling well enough to come back? It’s been tight with Clara covering the third-floor desk, especially with Braddy Evers Day coming up, but we can manage.”

  “Braddy Evers Day?” April asked.

  “You know,” Becky said, “From The First Adventure of Braddy Evers? We’re having a themed festival in the library next weekend. It’s in the events calendar.”

  “Oh, right.” April hadn’t read The First Adventure of Braddy Evers, unlike everyone else in the world. Even though the book was written like, a hundred years ago or something, everyone still loved it. There were even movies and television series based on it. April hadn’t even seen those.

  “Andre being gone doesn’t help, either,” Becky said, her voice falling a little.

  “Andre’s gone?” April said, trying to sound surprised. In one of the messages Dorian had left for her, he’d said, “maintenance took care of everything.” Thankfully, he hadn’t elaborated on what that meant, exactly. What had they told everyone? She probably should have called and asked Dorian what the story was.

  Becky’s eyes widened. “No one told you? Crap, I’m sorry. Andre hasn’t shown up for work since Friday. The police went over to his house after a few days. According to them it looked like Andre had just packed a bag and left. Can you believe that?”

  “No, I can’t.”

  “Me, neither,” Becky said. “I tried to put up missing person flyers in the library but Barbara caught wind of it and nixed it. She doesn’t want any more drama after Mae’s death and the gas leak debacle.”

  Uh oh. “You don’t believe he left?”

  “Andre wasn’t the type to leave. I know that because his wife left him a few years ago and took their son. He always talked about how cruel it was for her to just disappear.” Becky looked sidelong at her. “What do you think?”

  “I don’t think I knew him well enough to say for sure,” April said. Becky seemed to accept this answer. They started to walk into the building.

  “I was the last person to see him,” Becky said. “We were walking to our cars, and mine was closer to th
e door. He waved to me and said, ‘see you on Monday.’ Why would he say that if he was planning on leaving?”

  April’s eyes prickled. Andre had left that night totally expecting to come back. “I don’t know, Becky,” April said, sounding more forceful than she intended. “Maybe he was trying to throw you off the trail.”

  “What?” Becky stopped walking in front of the welcome desk and turned to face her. “I thought you’d be on my side. Everyone else is just concerned with not causing a fuss. What if Andre’s hurt? What if he needs our help? What if we do nothing and something worse happens?”

  She looked at April earnestly, waiting for her to say something. But what could she say? Andre was dead. She shouldn’t have come back.

  “I don’t know.”

  Becky let out a disgusted breath and walked away. April didn’t call after her. There was nothing to say.

  April’s legs felt like they were made of lead as she slowly climbed the staircase. She stopped on the landing between the second and third floors. If she went up any higher, she’d see the spot on the floor where Andre had been. Would the blood stain still be there? Would she find a note on her desk about red Kool-aid?

  She fought the urge to vomit. She closed her eyes and held a hand over her mouth. She couldn’t get sick. If she did, they might send her home again. If that happened, she’d never come back.

  But maybe that was better. Did she really want to come back here again? Yes, she decided. If she didn’t, it meant Andre had died for no reason.

  She forced herself to mount the last few stairs. She looked directly at the spot on the floor where she’d seen Andre. She didn’t want to try to avoid it. It was better to get it over with.

  The floor was clean, not even the slightest trace of blood. Had they entirely replaced the floor boards? She didn’t think blood stains came out of hardwood. Or maybe the maintenance person had magic cleaning abilities. Nothing would surprise her anymore.

  The air inside Mae’s office was stale after being closed up for a week. She retrieved the stack of mail from the slot outside of the door then closed it behind her and shut the blinds that looked out into the library. The darkness was comforting, the only light coming from the window behind her desk.