Hidden Game, Book 1 of the Ancient Court Trilogy Read online

  Dr. Schmitt would be returning to the castle soon. I walked around the small exam room, searching one more time for something, anything that could be used as a weapon. There was nothing—no conveniently-left-behind scalpel or even some rubber tubing that would be useful for strangulation.

  The doctor wasn’t as old as Papà, but he was certainly a good bit older than me, which meant he was stronger. He’d be able to best me in hand-to-hand combat. That was why a weapon of some sort would have been nice. There wasn’t even a chair in the room I could dismantle or crack over his skull.

  At least I had the element of surprise. And my feet. I was a football player. I was good with my feet. That was something. I might be able to trip him when he walked in and then kick him in the head when he was down.

  At the sound of voices coming down the hall, I went back and sat on the examination table. Hmmm. Maybe I could dismantle that and use it to fight with? I abandoned the idea as soon as the door opened and no less than four of my father’s guards came in.

  I stood up and greeted them. “What’s up fellas?”

  “Your Highness, I am sorry but…” One guard pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pocket and stepped toward me.

  “You don’t need those, guys,” I pleaded. “I’m cooperating.”

  “It’s your father’s command. I’m sorry.”

  Having no other choice, I held my arms up toward him. One of the other guards turned me around, pulling my arms behind my back. Merda. I hadn’t counted on this.

  The cuffs snapped on, brutally hard and cold around my wrists. A guard led me back to the exam table and pressed on my shoulders until I sat. Another one pulled out a cord and bound my feet before they all left the room. Merda merda.

  I called after them. “You guys are fired, by the way. When my father steps down, and I’m king, the bill is going to come due for this.”

  They did not respond.

  Okay then. No hands. No feet. What now? My mind thrashed about for a solution. I could head butt the doctor in the face when he least expected it. But then, escape would be difficult now that I was trussed up like a wild boar after the hunt. I’d try, but this might come down to that last resort I’d been keeping in one corner of my mind.

  I didn’t want to die. I desperately wanted to do exactly what Macy had begged me to do—get to America eventually and find her. But if it came to it, I would take myself out before allowing my body to be used in this obscene plot. The only thing worse than standing by and complacently allowing this travesty to happen would be to become a part of it.

  But restricted as I was, how could I even accomplish that final deed before the doctor could take the genetic material he needed from me?

  Glancing around the room again in desperation, I spotted one last source of hope. A small refrigerator sat on top of the counter lining one side of the room. Perhaps it contained medicine I could use to overdose? Maybe even something poisonous? I got to my feet and hopped over to it, using my chin to nudge the door open. No such luck.

  There was nothing that looked like medication inside, only several numbered trays, each holding small glass vials. They appeared to contain blood. Probably the samples he’d collected from the girls, though there weren’t enough vials in there to represent the entire fan pod. Must have been only the most recent ones.

  I used the top of my head to close the door again but stopped in mid-motion. The refrigerator might not contain anything poisonous—but it did contain something dangerous. I swung the door open again and then used my nose, chin, and teeth to pull out the partially filled tray that was closest to the front of the refrigerator.

  Managing to work my lips around the capped top of one of the vials, I sucked it into my mouth. The cold glass stung the inside of my cheek where I tucked it while extracting another vial. Using my tongue, I arranged the two vials, one on either side of my mouth. If I failed to subdue and kill the doctor, they would be my backup plan, my own version of those spy movie cyanide capsules.

  Human blood wasn’t deadly to Elves, of course. It was the glass that would do the trick. Not pleasant, to be sure, but hopefully effective. As a last resort, I would bite down as hard as possible, break the glass, and swallow it. There would be nothing the doctor could do to stop me, and the internal bleeding would end my life, thereby making my genetic material unavailable.

  The moment of truth came about ten minutes later. I heard the doctor speaking to the guards in the hallway, making sure I was “contained” before he entered the exam room.

  He stepped inside, a wide smile spread across his cold, sadistic face. “Ah, Nicolo. And how are you this fine morning?” he asked in a cheery tone.

  I of course, did not answer.

  He glanced at my bound feet and the handcuffs behind my back. “I’m sorry about the restraints. You’re probably a bit uncomfortable. But from what I understand, you’re slightly reluctant to contribute to the cause. I wouldn’t want to find myself on the receiving end of your, ah… disagreeable mood. Those feet of yours are quite legendary and no doubt very quick.”

  The doctor drew a syringe out of his lab coat pocket, holding it up to the light and flicking it with his forefinger a few times. “I’ll try to make this as painless as possible. You’ll wake up in your own bed, and very soon you’ll be back in the arms of your petite paramour.”

  With my mouth full of blood vials, I still said nothing, only stared poison-tipped arrows at him. The doctor didn’t seem to mind. He just kept chattering in that artificially cheery tone that made me want to cut off his tongue and shove it down his throat.

  “Sorry to have kept you waiting so long, but you know, that girl of yours is actually the reason.”

  My heartbeat skidded to a stop. Had he intercepted Macy last night? But no, Nox assured me she was safe with him. What the hell was this lunatic talking about?

  “I analyzed her blood sample along with all the others—but hers was not like the others. Not at all. I thought my equipment must have been malfunctioning, so I was taking a vial to the mainland for secondary testing in a larger lab. And then of course your father called me back. I arranged for a courier to meet me at the ferry dock to take her sample for testing. I’m awaiting a call on it now. Top priority, I told them. If my initial findings hold up, well… I can’t even express to you the excitement. A rare find, that girl. But then, you already know that, don’t you? No wonder you were so taken with her. And to think I had her right here in this room and let her walk out. If I’d only known I had a—”

  The ringing of his phone cut off his sentence. “Ah,” he said, his face alight with anticipation. He dropped the syringe back into his pocket and held up a finger to me with a wink as if I were a regular patient he was regretfully putting on hold. “Dr. Tufte. Have you news for me?” His expression morphed into one of wonder. “Remarkable. I thought so, too. We all did. Of course I will. Yes, thank you.”

  He ended the call and set the phone down on the counter, laughing and clapping. “Incredible. I didn’t think it was possible in this day and age.”

  His delight wouldn’t have interested me one bit if he hadn’t told me it had something to do with Macy. Still unable to talk without giving up the secret in my mouth, I stared at him, raising my eyebrows, silently demanding an answer.

  What has you so damned happy?

  Oh, going native, are we? He shifted to speaking aloud. “I don’t care for interacting with the minds of others. They are such messy places. What has me so damned happy is your little sweetheart.”

  He gathered some materials as he spoke, unlocking a drawer and pulling on a pair of gloves. “You see, finding her is like finding a four leafed clover in a field of spinach. It’s like acquiring the holy grail of research medicine. This one girl could solve all our problems regarding our servant race. Her genetic material combined with yours… it boggles the mind. I can’t wait to get her back into my clinic. I’ve already sent for her—you don’t mind, do you?”

  He stepped toward me
, obviously preparing to inject the contents of that syringe into me. If he succeeded, I’d no doubt be unconscious within minutes and unable to stop him from harvesting the genetic material he was after. Unable to stop him from doing whatever it was he was planning to do to Macy.

  As soon as he got close enough, I tucked my chin and lunged forward, striking the bottom of his jaw with the top of my head. There was a loud crack as his teeth snapped together—maybe he’d bitten off his own tongue and would choke on it after all.

  A shock of pain went through me as I landed on the floor, unable to block my fall with my hands or arms. I narrowly missed cracking my own jaw on the hard stone. The momentum of my lunge had left me lying on my belly, unable to even get to my knees. Lifting my head to glance around, I saw the doctor sprawled nearby.

  And then he got to his feet.

  Rubbing his chin, Dr. Schmitt walked slowly across the room to where the syringe had skittered across the stone floor. He bent over and picked it up and walked slowly back to me. Flopping like a fish on a riverbank, I struggled to right myself, to move away from him. It was no use.

  He lowered to his knees, shifting to press one of them into my back so I was completely pinned to the floor. With a cruel jerk, he grabbed my hair and pulled my head back, exposing the throbbing vein at the side of my neck.

  “Now,” he said, breathing hard, “we will have no more of that. It’s too bad the only one among us with the ability to help our people in this way is a bloody traitor.”

  All the false courtesy was gone, and his true feelings were coming out. “If it weren’t for your father, I’d take what I needed from you and then put you out of your misery. Nevertheless, you’ll have no pain. You’ll go to sleep, and when you wake up, your duty will have been done. You can go back to living your selfish, carefree life.”

  This was it. I was trapped. He was too strong for me, and once I passed out, I’d be powerless to stop the forward motion of his beastly plot. As soon as I felt the cold bite of the needle in my neck, I bit down as hard as I could on the two glass vials, shattering them with an audible crunch. Blood spilled from my mouth, and pain radiated around it as the shards of glass cut into my tongue and gums.

  “What?” The doctor leapt off of me, turning me over. “What have you done?” He reached toward my jaw, clearly intending to pry it open and sweep his fingers through my mouth to clear it of whatever I’d bitten. I swallowed, forcing the broken glass down my esophagus and into my stomach where it could accomplish its deadly task.

  Dr. Schmitt’s eyes flew open in terror. “No. No, stop. What are you doing, foolish boy?”

  Now that the glass had been swallowed, I allowed him to open my mouth. He swept his finger over my tongue, bringing it out again and holding it up to the light. It was coated in blood and tiny glass crystals.

  “You have ruined us,” he screamed. “All my hard work.”

  I lay on the floor and watched as he ran to the doorway, called for help, and then came back into the room, searching it for the source of my suicide. Clearly seeing nothing, he turned one way then another, and then he stopped and stared at the refrigerator. He flung the door open. And then he laughed.

  And laughed.

  And laughed.

  The tension fully drained from his body, he withdrew the partially full tray, turned and smirked down at me, a combination of scorn and pity on his face.

  “Of course,” he said, cackling like a half-wit. “Of course you chose her blood—you are drawn to it. Even when you are unaware, you choose her blood.” He laughed again. “Your attempt to escape your fate has failed, Your Highness. Out of all the vials in there, you swallowed the only ones that would save your life instead of taking it. Macy’s blood.”

  Macy. Macy. As I sank into darkness, I thought of her sweet face, her tiny perfect form, and I smiled. She was the only thing that mattered to me anymore. She was free, and she had to stay that way. With one final grunt of effort, I lifted my bound feet and swung hard with my legs, knocking the doctor’s legs out from under him.

  He went down with a shout of surprise, his head striking the floor with a thud, the tray in his hands crashing against the stone, and the remaining vials shattering around us like raindrops made of blood and glass.

  22

  Macy

  I woke with a jolt as the plane’s wheels touched down.

  Blinking at the distant lights outside my rain-spattered window, I watched as we taxied to the private airport’s refueling station and a crew of workers in bright orange slicker suits began attending to their tasks.

  Nox got up from his seat in the cabin and came to sit in the one beside me. “We’re in New York. Just a stopover to refuel,” he explained in a low voice, conscious of the other passengers sleeping around us. “We’re going to continue on from here—I need to get back to Los Angeles today, speak with the members of my council and my brother about what you’ve told us. Would you like us to make a stop in Missouri and drop you off?”

  I sat up in my seat, coming to full alertness. “No. I… I can’t go home. I want to stay with you so I can find out what’s happening with Nic. I have no other way of getting information about the Ancient Court.”

  That was one of the reasons—a big one. But I also wasn’t ready to go home and face my family. Nothing had changed. Actually, things were worse. I had failed to save Olly. God knew what was happening to her back there at the castle. And I’d failed to save the other fan pod girls. I hadn’t been able to interrupt the Ancient Court’s plot to release a plague into the human population.

  Knowing about it without being able to do anything to prevent it was almost too much to bear. All I could do was trust in Nox and his friends, that they would begin working to save all of us—somehow—as soon as we landed again.

  I slept some more on the way to L.A. Once on the ground there, I powered up the phone Nox had loaned me, nearly dizzy with hope that Nic had tried to contact me somehow, to let me know he was okay. Of course there was no phone number I could have given him, but I had a few social media accounts. Maybe he would think to search for me that way.

  As the plane taxied and then stopped, I kept my seat, eagerly logging on to one site after the other, scrolling through the long lists of notifications from friends asking how my European “vacation” was going and tagging me in their own posts.

  Anders lumbered past my seat, stretching his long limbs. “Such a girl,” he teased. “Gotta check out what your friends had for dinner and what everybody’s wearing tonight.”

  “Shut up surfer boy,” I muttered, though my attitude toward him had improved a bit once we’d made it out of the castle to the airplane, and I realized just how far he’d had to carry me in that case of his.

  He laughed and dropped into the adjacent seat, leaning his head in close to mine. He put on a heavy surfer-dude accent, and said, “Come on—let’s take a selfie. You can tell everybody you met the famous keyboard player from The Hidden.”

  I shoved at his shoulder. “Go away, moron. You have morning breath.”

  He stood immediately, breathing into his own hand and holding it up to his nose. Walking toward the front of the plane, he called out, “Hey—anybody got a mint or something?”

  Pleased with myself for getting under his perfectly tanned California boy skin, I chuckled. His breath hadn’t actually smelled bad. In my experience, Elven guys never smelled bad. So unfair. I probably reeked in every possible way after the long trip.

  I refocused on my notifications alerts, still hoping for word from my own Elven guy. My heart sank as I reached the bottom of the last list, seeing nothing from him. But there was one that caught my eye—a private message from someone with no profile pic and very few friends or likes. Someone named Olivia Rowan.

  Oh! Olly! I pressed the screen so hard I nearly broke a nail. How had she managed to contact me? Had she escaped? My eyes scanned the words of her message, reading them over and over again.

  -Macy. Is that you? Your profile sti
ll has gymnastics photos, so I think it is. I am home. I hope you are, too. I heard Dominique talking, and she said you’d disappeared. Are you okay? Please be okay.

  She was home! Her message had come this morning, which if I was remembering the time difference correctly would have been about dinner time for her. Right now it should be morning in England. Hopefully she was up and near her phone. I replied as quickly as my fingers could type.

  -Olly I’m so glad to hear from you. How did you get away? Did you escape somehow? I’m okay. I’m not home, but I’m back in America and safe. Are you okay? Did they hurt you?

  Waiting for her answer with a level of anxiety and anticipation I’d never felt before, I sent up a silent prayer she didn’t reply with a message telling me she was pregnant. Her response came a few minutes later.

  -Macy! You’re safe. I am dancing around my bedroom right now, but I’d better stop because I’m supposed to be resting and Mum and Dad might hear. They took away my electronics privileges, but they forgot about my tablet. I’m fine. I didn’t escape. They just let me go. I know, it’s weird.

  -Maybe Nic had something to do with it? I typed.

  My heart soared. Nic must have succeeded, defeating the doctor and stopping the Ancient Court’s plot. Maybe all the fan pod girls had been freed. I’d be hearing from him soon, and we’d be reunited. Nox might be sorry he’d lent me this phone because I’d probably send his data bill through the roof, refreshing my accounts nonstop until I heard from Nic.

  I laughed, busily typing out my hopes to Olly when another message from her popped up.

  -I have some bad news.

  My fingers stilled on the screen, my heart stopping cold.

  -I was in the clinic being tested right before they let me go. I saw Nicolo there. He was being carried out. His body was all limp and still. He was covered in blood. I don’t think he was alive.

  I sat staring at the screen, the words swimming before my eyes. My hands had gone numb.