Chapter 5
"Can you believe he wants us to do this?" Emerson asked his brother as they drove through the streets of London.
"It's an it, and yes I kind of can. I made him go to jail for ages, remember."
"Oh yeah. Damn you and your past mistakes!" Emerson said, only half joking. "Wait, do you know where Amya went, I'm pretty sure she stopped following us before we got into Rysk Industries."
"I dunno. She probably got held up in traffic or something." Caiden said unconvincingly.
"Yeah, probably." Emerson said unconvinced. "Anyway, we have other things to worry about, like how the heck Rysk is expecting us to do what he asked!"
"Yeah, like that." Caiden agreed.
"Do we have a plan?" Emerson asked fearing the worst.
"Sadly, yes." Caiden replied forlornly and Emerson's shoulders slumped.
"Damn that's just what they'll be expecting."
"I know, I tried my hardest not to come up with one, but it just forced itself my mind, and now I can't forget it."
"I hate it when that happens."
"I know, oh well, I guess we'll have to use the plan."
"What is the plan?"
"Oh, just to get in, somehow, steal what we need, then get out using a lot of brute force." Caiden explained.
"So pretty much what we would have done anyway."
Caiden thought for a second. "Oh yeah, it is, isn't it. Awesome."
They continued driving in silence until Emerson asked. "Do you think that we have even the slightest chance of retrieving this 'object'?"
Caiden thought for a moment and then replied. "Nope, we're stuffed."
"Well aren't you optimistic." Emerson murmured.
"Do you think we have a chance?" Caiden asked expectantly.
"Well, no. But that's not the point." Emerson insisted.
"What is the point?"
Emerson was about to answer, but then frowned. "I'm not sure…" He paused and started to say more but stopped and there was silence for a while with Emerson in deep concentration trying to think of an answer. He kept looking as if he was about to say something, but then frowning to himself and going back to thinking.
After a while Caiden got bored of only the constant hum of the engine and so decided to start up an entirely new conversation.
"I wonder if Rysk would know anything about Maelicen Villainous." He speculated and made Emerson jump.
"Huh, sorry?" Emerson asked, having been interrupted from his concentration.
"I said, I wonder if Rysk knows anything about Maelicen Villainous. You know the guy who we're up against." Caiden prompted.
"Oh, right, yeah. Yeah, he might have some useful information. I'd really love to know what kind of magic that guy uses."
"Yeah, well if Rysk doesn't know then I'm sure you'll find out first hand."
"What a cheerful thought." Emerson said sarcastically and Caiden smiled. "I've got it!" Emerson said triumphantly.
"I'm sorry what?" Caiden asked confused.
"I realised what the point was."
"What do you…" Caiden started and then realised. "Oh, right, you're still hung up on that."
Emerson ignored his brother's comment. "I see what I meant now."
"Please, enlighten me?"
"Well basically, the point was that even though I have no faith in us at all, neither do you and you're supposed to be the older brother who's all optimistic and stuff." Emerson said, pleased with himself, however Caiden looked less pleased.
"That's it." Caiden said disappointed.
"That's it." Emerson agreed happily.
"You must be joking."
Emerson frowned, "No, why would I be joking?"
Caiden glared at him.
"Honestly, why would I be joking?" Emerson asked genuinely confused.
Caiden continued to stare at his brother. "You really have no idea do you?"
"No." Emerson insisted.
"I had no idea you were so…"
"Naïve?" Emerson suggested.
"I was gonna say ignorant, but I guess naïve works too."
"Yeah…" Emerson said in agreement but then realised what his brother said. "Wait hey!"
"What?" Caiden asked in mock innocence.
"I'm not ignorant."
"No, of course not." Caiden agreed trying not to laugh.
"I thought not." Emerson said finally satisfied.
Caiden's mind began to drift, he started to wonder about how they were going to even 'acquire' this 'object that Rysk demanded they get, let alone how they were going to take down Villainous and his gang. Caiden was so deep in thought that he didn't notice the next turning was where they were supposed to go.
"Caiden." Emerson said trying to jolt his brother back to reality, but he got no response. "Caiden!" he said much more forcefully.
"Huh? What?"
"Turn right!"
"Huh?"
"TURN RIGHT!"
The car jerked sideways as Caiden was ripped back to reality. The car skidded as it turned and they were still for a moment. Caiden put on the gas, and they sped forward down the road.
"This is it." Caiden exclaimed. "We're here."
"Yay." Emerson said with mock enthusiasm.
The little car trundled down the street and Caiden prepared to turn left. As the car turned, Emerson's eyes widened. In front of them was a different world. They'd just been driving down London streets, driving past grotty estates and now right in front of them was a castle. It was literally a medieval, stone castle. It had four huge stone towers at each corner which was so stereotypical it almost made Caiden laugh, he could almost imagine a captured princess at the top crying out for help and an evil dragon flying around the top of the castle, he smiled at the thought. It towered over them, as if to say, I'm bigger than you so don't try anything stupid, in a kind of overweight prison guard way.
"Right, well I guess we're reached our destination." Caiden said sheepishly.
"Yay." Emerson repeated.
They parked the car by the roadside a few streets from the castle so as to be careful. The brothers started down the streets towards the castle until after about five hundred meters Caiden stopped so suddenly that Emerson continued walking alone for a while without noticing. Emerson turned to his right to ask his brother something and realised he wasn't there. He turned to look behind him and saw Caiden standing about fifty yards behind him deep in thought.
"We've forgotten something haven't we?" Emerson guessed.
"We have." Caiden confirmed regretfully.
Emerson waited for him to say more, but Caiden continued thinking to himself quietly.
"What…" Emerson prompted, but he still got no answer. "What?!" Emerson said much louder.
"Oh, right. Well, our great dilemma is… how the heck are we planning to get inside? I mean, it's a freakin' castle, I expect it'll have pretty amazing defences. It's not like we're gonna be able to walk in through the front gate?"
"Well, you never know." Emerson joked. "If we pretended to be pizza delivery guys…" Caiden looked at his younger brother humourlessly but that did nothing to deter him. "Maybe if we perfected Indian accents and came in with takeaways, or…"
"Emerson." Caiden interrupted.
"Uhuh?"
"Shut up." He said bluntly.
"Ok." Emerson said happily.
Emerson stood silently while Caiden went through every scenario in his mind.
"Ok, basically we have literally no chance at all of getting inside the castle, let alone finding and stealing this 'object' and then escaping with our lives."
"Great, so what are we gonna do?"
"We're gonna mug a pizza guy." Caiden decided, and Emerson grinned mischievously.
Their target was a spotty teenager of about seventeen years. He carried his deliveries around on his moped which could only go up to about thirty five miles per hour, but he still loved it. The name on his badge said Jeremy. Jeremy was taking his latest delivery down a street to the house that ordered it. He was pleased with himself, the order had been placed just twenty minutes ago and he was almost there, a record time. As he slowly, but steadily, so as not to knock the pizza off his moped, drove down the street, he noticed a car.
The car was a normal, VW Golf, so why did it make Jeremy suspicious? Probably because it was driving, steadily towards him on his side of the road. He figured it must be about to turn onto the right side of the road so he continued going, however, it didn't budge.
"We're going to hit him?" Emerson said disbelieving inside the car which was slowly gaining the ground towards Jeremy and was only about six hundred meters away.
"Uhuh." Caiden confirmed.
"Are you mad?" Caiden thought for a moment. "Yes." He said simply. "But I don't see what that has to do with this."
"What if he's hurt? What if he breaks his neck or something, we could kill him!"
Caiden looked at him as if he was stupid. "We're both going below fifteen miles an hour."
"But it's a collision, that makes it more powerful."
They were still heading for each other, the space between them only one hundred meters now.
"Caiden stop being ridiculous, normally you're the sensible one!"
"Ok." Caiden said finally, and the car stopped.
"What do we do now?" Emerson asked.
Jeremy, having noticed that they'd stopped, continued driving and as he neared the car he turned to go past it. Just as he was level with the front of the car, the door swung open and crashed into him and he was knocked backwards off his moped. He landed hard on the road, his helmet protecting his head from crashing against the concrete, but the impact still sent jolts through his body.
His elbows had crashed hard against the ground and he had nasty bruises and cuts everywhere but there was no lasting damage. He opened his eyes to see two young men getting out of the van and walk towards him.
"Oops." He heard one of them say. "I didn't mean to open the door so hard."
The man who opened the door walked up to Jeremy slowly.
"Do you think he's dead?" Emerson wondered and Caiden nudged Jeremy with his foot and Jeremy yelped.
"He's alive." Emerson stated.
"What's your name?" Caiden asked.
"Jemy" the Jeremy muttered
"What?"
"He said Jeremy." Emerson translated.
"Whayayowan?"
"Sorry?" Caiden asked confused.
"What do you want?" Jeremy corrected.
Caiden looked confused.
"He's asking why we knocked him off his moped." Emerson explained.
"Oh, that. Well we need you to take your clothes off." Caiden explained and Emerson face palmed.
Jeremy frowned. "Are you asking me to strip for you?"
"What? No." Caiden said confused and he looked at Emerson who had his head in his hands and was pretending to cry.
"No." Caiden said again. "We just need your clothes and moped. Oh, and the pizza."
"Why?" Jeremy asked, very confused.
"You don't need to know."
"Why would I want to? What's in it for me?"
"We'll give them back, apart from the pizza obviously, you'd have to stay here until we come back."
"Alone in London at night, in just my underwear and shoes."
"Actually we kind of need your shoes as well." Caiden said in defeat.
"We could take him in the car; he could stay there while we go in and get it." Emerson suggested and Caiden glared at him.
Caiden looked back at Jeremy. "Can you excuse my brother and I while confer for a minute?"
"Do I have any choice?" Jeremy asked.
"None at all, I was just being polite."
"Ok, well I'll just be lying on the ground over here; I'm in quite a bit of pain so you can expect me not to move anyway."
"Many thanks." Caiden said and dragged his brother back towards the car.
"We are not taking this unarmed teenager into a potentially violent and explosive war zone."
"We'll leave him with the car; he could look after it for us."
"You trust this guy?" Caiden asked suspiciously.
"Caiden, he's seventeen or something, he's easily influenced. If we show he magic, we'll instantly become his idols."
"I'm pretty sure you're talking about seven year olds."
Emerson's face screwed up. "Damn. What age is seventeen again?"
"He's a teen, on the border of becoming an adult."
Emerson continued to look confused. "The age you start drinking at."
"Oh, right. Yeah, he's never going to agree to this. How are we going to do this then?"
Caiden thought for a moment. "I don't want to have to take him out, but that could be the only option."
"Unless…" Emerson started, then turned and started walking towards Jeremy.
"What?" Caiden asked but Emerson continued walking towards Jeremy. "Emerson, unless what?"
As Emerson got closer to Jeremy, the youth looked up.
"Jeremy, you said that you wouldn't get anything from it, what would you like in exchange?"
Jeremy seemed to perk up when Emerson said this.
"What could you give me?" he asked doubtfully.
"You'd be surprised." Caiden chipped in.
"Do you have money?"
"Hmmmmm… that seems to be the only thing."
"That's the only thing I could think of really…"
"Really?" Emerson asked.
"Yeah, sorry. Wait, what's happened to your hand?" Jeremy asked, indicating Caiden who had subconsciously set his hand alight. Caiden noticed and shook it out.
"What was that? Your hand was on fire!" Jeremy shouted, stepping quickly away from them.
"No it wasn't." Caiden tried.
"It was, I saw it with my own eyes. How did you do that? Who are you?"
"Ok, I'm Caiden Tate, this is my brother Emerson. We're doing some work for the government, kind of."
"That doesn't explain… that." Jeremy shouted.
"Calm down, stop shouting. Ok, we really need what you're wearing, please Jeremy?"
"Do you have, like powers, superpowers?"
"No, we're just normal people, what you saw was a trick of the light."
"You are not normal, stop lying to me!" Jeremy demanded.
"Calm down, ok. Look." Caiden said and took his hand out in front of him. A spark came from his hand and suddenly it was engulfed in flame. Caiden looked up at Jeremy who was standing there, his mouth open.
"Jeremy, are you ok?" Caiden asked worried.
"What, yeah." Jeremy said, and sighed. "That's awesome."
"So can you help us?"
"Actually, yes. I realised I'm gonna get fired after this, so I'm gonna need a new job."
"That's not…" Caiden started.
"Yes, that is something we can do." Emerson interjected.
"It is?" Caiden asked confused.
"Yes, it is." Emerson confirmed completely sure.
"Ok, I guess we can get you a new job, are you in?"
"I'm in." Jeremy agreed.
There was an awkward silence for a while.
"Do you want to get changed in the car?" Caiden suggested.
"What am I gonna change into?" Jeremy asked.
"Ah, yeah. That's a good question. Emerson any ideas?"
"Well, I'm not gonna wear the pizza guy stuff. So you can swap clothes."
"Yeah, and I'm not wearing a suit." Jeremy decided and Emerson glared at him"
"Fine." Caiden said unhappily and started towards the car.
Fifteen minutes later, Caiden was dressed like a pizza delivery boy, and Jeremy was dressed in Caiden's clothes. They had somehow managed to fit the moped into the boot of the car and were now heading back to the castle. Jeremy was sitting in the back and the brothers were in the front.
"How the heck are you expecting us to get Jeremy a job?" Caiden asked Emerson angrily but quietly.
"Oh, I have an idea." Emerson said happily.
"What?" Caiden prompted.
"Oh, you'll have to wait for my brilliance, I'm not gonna tell you now. I'm gonna let the tension build and reveal it at the last second."
"I hate you." Caiden complained.
"You've told me, many times."
"Well I'm just trying to get the point across."
"Oh, it's ok, you have, you really have."
They drove down the street until they got almost to the end, Caiden pulled onto the side and parked. They got out and opened the back to let out Jeremy. Jeremy and Emerson stood there while Caiden took the moped out the boot and got on along with the pizza, which was now stone cold and only half there because Jeremy had got hungry, still on the back.
"Emerson, come a bit behind me, make sure no-one sees you. From there, you know what to do. Jeremy, stay back here with the car, if anything bad happens, get out of here, there's no point in you getting killed too." Caiden said, and with that he sped away.
"I guess I might as well go now as well, see ya mate." Emerson said and started trudging off after his brother.
That left Jeremy standing with the car; he shrugged, opened the driver's seat door and got in.
Caiden pulled up outside the castle, and parked the moped by the side of the road. He got off, took the pizza and made his way towards the castle. As he reached the huge set off doors at the front of the castle he noticed that there was no doorbell. He banged his fist on the door and waited.
After a while, he heard some footsteps coming closer. He heard someone reach the door and pull across a bolt. The door swung open and a man in a suit stood there, he reminded Caiden of a butler, yeah, he decided he must be the butler.
"Hello." the butler said.
"Hi." Caiden said. "I'm here to deliver some pizza."
"You have the wrong place." The butler said and started to close the door but Caiden put his hand out to stop it.
"Ummm, no. This was definitely the address I was given." Caiden insisted.
"No-one has ordered pizza from this location."
"They must have."
"The owners of this property do not order pizza, we never order pizza, so thank you, but you have the wrong property." He said more forcefully.
"No, I am certain this is the place, I was told that it was at the castle, how many castles do you think there are around here?"
"I can promise you, this is the wrong place!" the butler's face turned to a frown. "You're a bit old for a delivery boy aren't you?"
"Well… yes. You know what, I'm just gonna tell you now, I'm not a delivery guy. I'm not here to deliver you pizza."
"Why are you here?" the butler asked suspiciously.
"I need to get inside."
"I'm sorry, I can't allow you to come in."
"I know." Caiden said and the butler was hit in the chest by a ball of energy. He was flung backwards, onto the floor, he didn't get up. Emerson walked around Caiden and through the doors, Caiden followed. Through the door was a huge room with grand lights hanging from the ceiling. There were dozens of doors leading from the room to the rest of the castle.
"Do we have any clue where what we're looking for is?" Emerson asked.
"Nope, none at all."
"So what's our plan of action?"
"I'm not sure, we're in, to be honest, I didn't think we'd get this far."
"Hmmm, me neither." Emerson agreed and just as he said that, men started streaming through the doors all around them. More and more kept coming until there were about fifty men surrounding them, all armed. Out of the door in front of them walked another man of perhaps mid-fifties. He was dressed in an impeccable suit and had dark grey, tightly cropped hair and alarming grey eyes.
"Caiden Tate, Emerson." The man said addressing the brothers, his voice was deep and smooth. "My name is Potiphus Laire, and it seems that you've broken into my castle, knocked out my butler, and are now looking for a very expensive and valuable item, that has great sentimental value to me, to steal."
"To be fair, we didn't know that it had sentimental value, and you know, if you don't like us stealing it, then you should have a word with the person who told us to steal it. I'll tell you who it was if you let us go?" Emerson offered.
"I know who it was, it was Navaryous Rysk." Laire said.
"Oh." Emerson said awkwardly. "Right. Are you still gonna let us go?"
"Nope, not even a little bit." Laire answered grinning.
A/N: Isn't Jeremy just so loveable! Also, what's going to happen next? Well I know, I've already written it, but do you? The next chapters really short and won't really be relevant at all for the moment but I'm hoping to sometime write other books for this series or something, which will probably include a prequel or something. Please review! I'd really love it if you could, read on if you want to find out what will happen next, where the heck is Amya?! Other chapters are up, more coming, thanks.
Mangobean.
