Exciti

Chapter 13 (Adam)

 "I called your parents and told them you're late because you walked home a sick friend." The doctor said as they left the parking spot in a silver station wagon.

"Huh?" Adam mumbled and looked up from his spot in the shotgun seat. He was still stunned from the surgery he had just performed on Lucy. He fought to slow his breathing. Holy bananas! Did I just dive with my tools into someone's head? What if Lucy woke up a murderous zombie robot? What if she doesn't wake up at all? There was this odd jerk when I screwed one of the gears in too tight.

The doctor seemed to understand what Adam was going through. "Lucy will be fine and in school by tomorrow morning, I promise."

Adam nodded, clinging to the reassurance. "How can she be so, alive, with such a simple mechanism?" He finally blurted what bothered him the most all along.

Dr. Little smiled, "let's just say she is more than the sum of her parts." He then glanced at Adam before he spoke. "Listen, we never got to talk until now, and I know you have many questions. But before I explain what I know about this situation to you, and I promise I will, I need you to tell me everything you two know, starting with the day Tamara disappeared."

Adam took a deep breath and looked at Liam, who sat in the back, in a silent plea for help. Together, they reconstructed everything that happened from the moment they saw Ms. White to the moment they arrived to Mercury Antiques.

Dr. Little pulled up at a red light and turned to Adam, frowning. "And both Ms. White and the wolf went up and... disappeared?"

Adam took the papers out of his pocket. "Yeah. The wolf left these behind, though."

The doctor took the papers and studied them for a few seconds before they started shaking in his hands. Adam opened him mouth to ask him what's wrong, but the light turned green and a car honked.

The doctor opened the glove compartment and left the papers there before he gripped the wheel again and started moving, "What I'm about to tell you is something you can't tell anyone. And I mean anyone! This world you were plunged into has ways to silence people who ...talk." He cast a quick glance at each of them as if making sure they took him seriously before he continued, "Good, now let's start with the basics. What do you know about antiques?"

"Old, expensive things?" guessed Adam.

The doctor nodded, "They could be, but to be specific: Antiques are man-made objects that are over a hundred years old. Those who work with antiques, like me, are called Antiquarians."

"Eiserne called you an Antiquarian," remarked Adam, "And the guy who was with him, Ricky, he was worried about a society? One that he feared was watching?"

"They were referring to The Society, a secret global Antiquarian guild, of sorts. We've been around for the last few millennia. I'm a Tracker Antiquarian from the New England chapter."

Liam, who watched the doctor's lips carefully in the rearview mirror, tapped Adam's shoulder to sign the very question Adam was thinking.

Adam repeated the question. "Was Tam in that Society?"

The doctor nodded, "Yes, she was my senior apprentice, a future Antiquarian in training. Lucy is my junior apprentice."

Adam swallowed a curse and fought to control his emotions; he was getting to hear about a whole part of his sister's life. One he had no clue existed. A secret society? What on earth did you get yourself into, Tam?

He felt like he was gazing down a rabbit hole, unable to see the bottom. "What does this Society do?" Ignoring Liam, who shook his head in a rapid motion, as if to say: I really don't want to know.