Hotbloods 5: Traitors

And not a moment too soon.

I clamped a hand over my mouth, still terrified that this doctor would hear my breathing over the dead silence of the room, and heard someone enter. Turning my head, I could see a pair of cream loafer-like shoes treading across the floorboards and bright white pants grazing a bare ankle.

“Doctor Ulani, you found us!” Sarrask boomed, his voice way too loud.

I thought about the trapdoor lying just under me, and wondered if I should open it. If Sarrask was going to start acting weird, this doctor would soon smell a rat. I fumbled for the latch, knowing I’d have to choose my moments carefully.

“You have too many steps,” a silky male voice replied, presumably Doctor Ulani. “You should install fewer steps in the future.”

“Doctor Ulani comes highly recommended by Queen Gianne,” Sarrask said.

“At which university did you study?” Kaido interjected.

A cough spluttered from the doctor. “Never you mind. I am here to fix your aunt. It’s a broken leg, isn’t it? A collision with a Snapper, yes?”

“It’s our mother, and she seems to have ingested this painkiller tonic. There was no Snapper involved,” Kaido replied. I heard the clink of the tonic bottle on the nightstand.

“It looks like she got most of it out!” The doctor chuckled to himself, his loafer touching the pool of purplish vomit right beside where I lay.

“Will she be okay, Doctor?” Sarrask asked, his tone panicked. “What if there’s still too much inside her stomach? How are you going to make her better?”

The doctor was silent for a moment. “Well, you see, what it is… Your mother has a case of exo-internal combustion, brought on by overstimulated gastronomical trauma. It’s quite common, and nothing to worry about,” he replied. I stifled a snort. I’d never heard a bigger load of crap in my life.

“What brought it on, though, Doctor? What made her drink the tonic? What started the… overstimulated gastronomical trauma?” Sarrask pressed. I wished I could’ve seen Kaido’s face, as he’d likely realized it was nonsense, too. This guy was a hack.

“It could be a variety of things. Environmental issues, digestion issues, feminine issues—it’s really hard to say, on first inspection,” the doctor mused.

“How can you tell anything, Doctor, when you have yet to touch the patient?” Kaido chimed in, making it almost impossible for me not to crumble into hysterics.

The doctor scoffed. “I do not need to touch the patient to know what my eyes see. Her… expulsion got much of the poison out, and she is breathing well enough. I would say a few days of rest will do a world of good, and we can just let nature take its course.”

“Let nature take its course?” Sarrask repeated.

“Nine times out of ten, nature trumps any drug I might give. I’d have to know more about her medical history, but I’m sure she’ll be fine,” he replied. “You know, you really shouldn’t call the emergency line if you don’t have an emergency.”

I could almost see the look of frustration on Sarrask’s face. “This is an emergency! My mother took something, and we don’t know what pushed her to do it. Aren’t you supposed to be an expert in, you know… mental issues?”

The doctor hesitated. “I dabble.”

If I didn’t get out of here soon, I would explode with laughter. All the while, poor Lorela was being ignored. If I hadn’t been sure the worst had passed, I would’ve slid out from under the bed and asked for some credentials. She’d have a raw throat and a killer headache, but she’d survive. Besides, soon enough, Jareth would be home, and he would decide what to do next.

An idea popped into my head. While Sarrask and Kaido were suitably distracted, I could finally sneak down into the passageway below me, to Jareth’s lab, and steal back the black box. I wasn’t entirely sure that Jareth had put it there, but I had a good inkling. It was too tempting an opportunity to pass up.

As Sarrask and Kaido argued with the clueless Doctor Ulani, I made a break for it, lifting the latch of the trapdoor. It swung open beneath me, barely making a sound. Wasting no time, I rolled over onto my stomach and shuffled to the edge of the gap, pulling myself through it. My biceps burned as I clung on for dear life, swaying awkwardly, before dropping down to the narrow staircase.

As soon as I hit solid ground, I reached up and shut the trapdoor behind me. The panel closed with a soft click. I hurried down the stairwell, heading toward the alchemy lab.

In the stuffy quiet of the corridor, my mind drifted back to the kiss that Sarrask had planted on my lips. I could still feel the rough graze of his stubble against my skin. Even now, I couldn’t get my head around what had possessed him to do it, given how much he seemed to dislike me. I remembered the shocked expression in his eyes when he’d pulled away, as though he hadn’t expected it, either.

He’d been stunned, but something else had lingered behind his eyes—an indiscernible mixture of emotions, playing tug-of-war for his attention. If he had feelings for me, then what was I supposed to do?

You have to let him know you’re not interested, obviously, I told myself, but I didn’t want to harden his heart with my rejection. Then again, I didn’t want to lie and lead him on. I just didn’t want to hurt the poor guy, not now that I’d seen a glimpse of his vulnerable side.

Moreover, what was I supposed to tell Navan, if he came back for me? I shuddered, hating that pesky “if.” With every day Navan stayed away, with no word of where he was or how he was doing, those fatalistic thoughts wormed their way into my mind.

Pushing all thoughts of Sarrask’s kiss and Navan’s MIA status away, I reached the second stairwell and pulled myself through the trapdoor, into the alchemy lab above. The lights were off, and the sour, chemical smell stung my nostrils.

I fumbled for the light switch, letting out a sigh of relief as a few dull bulbs cast a sickly glow on the room. Keeping one eye on the main door of the lab—its outside location still a mystery—I began my search for the black box.

I riffled through drawers and cabinets, sifting through cupboards full of bottles and beakers, and even delved into a few creepy-looking cases, but the black box was nowhere to be found. What I did find, however, was a key. It was magnetized to the underside of Jareth’s utensil tray and looked just about big enough to open the cabinets in the corner—the ones that had remained tantalizingly locked.

Figuring the black box might be in one of those, I hurried over and unlocked as many as possible. There were sheets and sheets of paper inside, held within sleek metal folders. There were notebooks, too, in the hundreds.

Knowing I might not get another chance like this, I was about to pluck up one of the leather-bound notebooks, when a glint caught my eye—an object stuck to the underside of the cabinet. I reached for it, bringing it out into the dim light. It was the black box device; Jareth had magnetized it to the top of the cabinet, the way he’d done with his keys.

Grinning with triumph, I turned it around in my hands, looking for the three-chevron symbol that turned it on. After pressing it, however, my enthusiasm faded. A strange dialogue box had popped up onto the monitor. I couldn’t read what it said at the top, but, underneath, there was a pattern of dots that resembled a cellphone unlock screen. Evidently, a password was required, and I didn’t have it.