Deadly measures, p.9
Deadly Measures, page 9
“You’re starting to hurt my brain,” Kasey replied as she put together the pieces. She’d never been big on religion, but only yesterday she’d been carried by an angel. The existence of something out there, a god, an actual supreme being, not the beings that pretended to it beyond the Veil, was somehow comforting.
Good. You’re starting to grasp the breadth of the matter. Now explain it to the Chancellor. You’ll need her help.
“Will do my best,” Kasey replied as she turned to Strang and the large double doors of the Archive.
“Care to tell me what all that was about?” Strang asked. “I only caught your half of it.”
“Just having a heart-to-heart with the Earth Spirit, and now I know what we need.”
Strang raised an eyebrow. “And what might that be?”
Kasey pushed open the door of the Archives. “I don’t suppose there’s anything in here that could help us banish a god?”
Chapter 8
The Arcane Council’s archives brought back many memories for Kasey. It was through these halls that she had escaped to freedom when she and Sanders has fled the building. In doing so, she’d been rather heavy-handed with her magic and caused considerable damage to the priceless tomes stored here.
It hadn’t been intentional, but as she had fought with the well-meaning but ultimately misled ADI agents collateral damage had been unavoidable. The Council Archives were a literal labyrinth of shelves stretching from floor to ceiling. A central aisle ran down the middle of the massive chamber, but the shelves themselves split off in every conceivable direction, forming a maze that was exceptionally easy to get lost in. They twisted and turned, doubling back on themselves in a manner that was impossible to navigate if one weren’t a trained Keeper of Knowledge. The Archives design was intentional to prevent the information stored here from falling into the wrong hands.
This morning, the Archives were still. Kasey’s runners scuffed against the tiles, letting out a squeak as she dragged her feet a little.
Strang led the way through the archives. She was a woman on a mission. “Do try to keep up, Chase. You could get lost in here for days.”
“No doubt,” Kasey replied, picking up her pace. The Chancellor seemed to know exactly where she was headed, likely a result of a life spent working for the Arcane Council.
They were halfway down the central aisle. A figure stepped out from behind a bookshelf to block their path. He was of medium height with dark black hair and wire-rimmed glasses. Rather than normal street wear, he wore a set of black robes.
Kasey recognised him as the incumbent Keeper of Knowledge, Morgan Trondheim. It was difficult to forget a man who’d spoken against you at your trial. He’d been one of Strang’s key witnesses.
“Good morning, Chancellor.” He bowed deeply, but as he rose, his eyes were fixed intently on Kasey. “What is she doing here?”
“Helping me, Morgan.” Strang peered past Trondheim’s shoulder, scanning the aisles ahead as she answered him.
Morgan glowered at Kasey. “I was hoping we’d seen the back of her for good. The Archives can’t be exposed to her reckless brand of vigilante justice.”
“Go on, Morgan.” Kasey grinned. “Tell me how you really feel.”
“I believe I just did.” Morgan folded his arms. “Chancellor, she shouldn’t be here. We’re still dealing with the fallout of her last visit.”
“Hush, Morgan, I’ve had a long night.” Strang raised her hand to stop his mewling tirade. “Kasey is here at my invitation and we are rather busy, so if you wouldn’t mind handing over your key to the Repository’s Vault, and then seal the Archives to ensure no one, including yourself, interrupts us.”
“The Vault?” Morgan’s jaw dropped. “Surely you’re not going to let a known warlock have access to the vaults? Have you gone mad?”
Strang opened her mouth to answer, but before she could get a word out, Morgan cut her off. “Are you even the Chancellor? Or is this Noah Sanders trying to pull the wool over my eyes?”
“Morgan.” Strang’s tone grew impatient.
“Revelare!“ Morgan bellowed, as he raised his hand.
The wave of magic rolled over Kasey and Strang, revealing nothing more than how irritated Strang was at the unnecessary delay.
She blinked and held out her hand. “Are you quite finished, Morgan? I didn’t think my instructions left any room for misunderstanding?”
Morgan scratched at the nape of his neck as he considered his next course of action.
“Morgan, if the next thing you do isn’t handing over your key, you’ll be spending the rest of the morning writing your letter of resignation, do you understand me?”
“Resignation?” Morgan gasped. “Surely you can’t be serious.”
“You were at my appointment. You know the stakes. The Council doesn’t need a bureaucrat tying our hands. We need to take drastic action or be overwhelmed by our enemies. Now give me the key.”
Morgan reached into a pocket in his robes and produced a large silver key. It was ornate, four inches long with an intricate bow and a series of unusually shaped teeth on the blade.
“Please be careful, Chancellor. The vaults are full of dangerous relics. If you need any assistance, please ask.”
“I am the Arcane Chancellor, not a schoolteacher here on a field trip, Morgan. I was fighting warlocks while you were still at the Academy.”
Morgan backed away. “I meant no offence, Chancellor. I’m sorry. If you need me, I’ll be in my office.”
“Ensure were not interrupted,” Marion called after him.
“Yes, Chancellor,” Morgan replied, not bothering to turn around.
“He can be insufferable at times.” Strang sighed as he retreated into the rows of books.
“You’re the one that appointed him,” Kasey said with a smile.
“Unfortunately, his knowledge of the Archives is second to none. After Stacy Lender went off the reservation, we needed someone we could rely on to restore order.”
Stacey Lender had betrayed the Council to the Feudal Court. The act had cost dozens of ADI agents their lives and almost allowed Rhaine, King of the Feudal Court, the opportunity to destroy the city.
“I’d rather have the irritant I know, then one I don’t,” Strang replied. “Something of a theme in my life lately.”
Kasey cracked a big grin, holding her hands in a heart-shape as she gave her best impression of a teenage girl. “Best friends forever!”
Strang rolled her eyes. “Come on, the vaults are this way.”
“Are you looking for something in particular? Or are we just window shopping?” Kasey asked as they walked.
“I’ll settle for anything that can help us with Methuselah and his master,” Strang said. “I’m not sure we have any god-killers. But if we do, it will be in the vault. Everything we’ve ever confiscated from a warlock is locked in there.”
Kasey raised an eyebrow. “Surely anything that dangerous should be destroyed, not stuck in an archive box. I felt the same in the Terminus. Why keep dangerous relics and deadly criminals on ice if those pose such a significant threat in the first place? It’s not like the Congress is shy about capital punishment.”
Strang looked over her shoulder as she turned down an aisle. “I don’t expect you to understand, Kasey. You’re always focused on the here and now, the fight that is in front of you. In spite of the time you spent on the Council, you never grasped the need to plan beyond the immediate danger for the threats still to come. You said it yourself—humanity is not the predators in the supernatural world. We are all too often the prey. And while we might have been party to the Arcane Covenant, the Congress never wanted to rely on it for our continued safety. If the Fairy Courts or anyone else turned on us, the Council wanted the means to protect ourselves. As such, it is the practice of the Congress and other bodies of magical government to store rather than destroy. One day, like today, we might face a foe that will require something stored in that vault. We’d feel pretty stupid if we had destroyed it out of fear.”
“Almost as foolish as that time a vampire lord stole a tome and almost used it to destroy the city?”
Strang didn’t bother turning. “Wasn’t that your family’s journal? You can’t have it both ways, Chase. It can’t be good enough for you to keep that in the family, while the Council is required to destroy all others.”
“I get it,” Kasey said. She’d walked right into that one.
“Do you?” Strang asked. “Because I’m betting you haven’t destroyed it since your trial, and you were pretty ambiguous about exactly where it is right now.”
“The Libro Sanquis contains the only written record of my people’s history,” Kasey replied. “But I get your point. Let’s hope your predecessors stored some truly ghastly artifacts, because we’re going to need them.”
Strang led the way through the shelves, turning right, then left, and then right again. In a matter of a minute, Kasey was completely lost.
The fact the bookshelves ran from floor to ceiling made it impossible to see beyond the current aisle to take one’s bearings.
Strang led her through the rabbit warren until they arrived at a dead surrounded by bookshelves on three sides.
“Wrong turn?” Kasey asked, “Want me to check in with Siri?”
“I know exactly where I am,” Strang said as she walked toward the row of bookshelves blocking the path. She reached up and pulled down on the spine of a book on the fourth row.
A dull thud issued as the spine struck the shelf harder than any book ought to. In the void behind the false book spine was a steel plate with a pentagram carved into it. Inside the pentagram was a gap. Strang drew out Morgan’s silver key and slit it into the keyway.
The rune glowed a brilliant blue hue, illuminating Strang’s face. She strode three feet to her right and pulled down a book on the second shelf, revealing a gold plate with the same pentagram carved into it.
She drew from her suit pocket a gold key almost identical to the one she had taken from Morgan Trondheim and slid it into the plate. Its rune glowed an angry red.
“We’re going to need to turn them at the same time,” Strang instructed. “I’ll take this one. You grab Trondheim’s.”
Kasey reach for the key.
“On the count of three,” Strang called. “One, two, three.”
Kasey and Strang turned the keys. The sound of whirring cogs filled the Archives. Strang stepped back and Kasey followed her lead as the entire bookshelf lowered into the floor.
“What would have happened if you only had one key?” Kasey asked.
“A deadly curse,” Strang replied. “It would pass through the key and into your hand swifter than the eye can see. It was designed to thwart anyone without knowledge of the proper protocols. The original Council believed it prudent to require multiple parties working in consort to avoid potential corruption. It’s why Lender could access the tome in the restricted section, but couldn’t find anything more dangerous to surrender to her vampire overlords. She would have needed signoff from Sanders, and she’d never have got it.”
“How did you get it?” Kasey asked.
“It was in his office,” Strang replied. “Don’t look so surprised. It’s protocol that they never leave the building. In case of emergency.”
It was unusual for Noah to let something so powerful slip from his grasp.
The shelves descended until the top of the bookshelf was flush with the floor. Stepping over it, Strang said, “Lux!”
Torches sprang to life along the walls of a steel chamber. Kasey had expected an old stone chamber, but the Vault was smooth steel on every side. It looked more like a surgical suite, or a morgue, than a storehouse of deadly relics. There wasn’t a speck of dust in sight, and the walls were clean enough that Kasey could make out her faint reflection in them.
Pointing a hand at the cavernous entry, Strang whispered a word of power. A sapphire shield filled the void.
“Just to ensure we’re not interrupted. Morgan can be a nosy one and I have no desire to let him roam about in here. The last thing we need is another Keeper of Knowledge succumbing to the call of the warlock’s path.”
“Has anyone ever told you you’ve got a problem with trust?” Kasey asked.
“Often,” Strang replied, with a perfectly straight face. “But it’s kept me alive just as my mentor insisted it would.”
“Flint?” Kasey asked.
“Yes,” Strang replied. “He has seldom been wrong about such matters.”
Kasey considered bringing up the fact that Flint’s zealous enforcement also cost innocent lives, but she needed Strang to stay on task, not rethink the fact that Kasey’s family was often on the other side of the law while she was in a vault loaded with the most dangerous artifacts the Council had ever confiscated.
The vault was about twenty feet wide. Spaced evenly along one was steel plinths, and each of them bore an artifact. The opposite wall was lined with shelves that bore everything from research notes to scientific equipment and Samsonite storage cases.
Strang stopped at the first artifact, a large spear with a skull set in the haft.
“The ones on the plinth are those we’ve had some success in studying, the others in the cases we’d be taking a chance and one that would just as likely be fatal to us, as them.”
“Lucky dip, huh? Maybe we stick with the artifacts that won’t kill us both.”
“This is the soul stealer. Said to plunder the life force of its victims and channel them into the user to prolong their life. It’s necromancy in its foulest form.”
Kasey shook her head. “It’s of no use to us.”
“That was quick,” Strang answered. “We might need it to stay alive.”
“You are too straightlaced to wield such a weapon,” Kasey replied, “and doing so would sever my tire to the Earth Spirit again. The price I paid last time was too high and I have no desire to change my soul with dark magic.”
Strang carried on down the line of plinths. The next bore an ancient tome so weathered it seemed to the faintest of breezes might cause its pages to dissolve into dust. Kasey recognised none of the symbols on the open pages.
“It’s written in Sanskrit,” Strang said. “An ancient dialect and we have never found an interpreter. It was discovered at a university about the time an ancient literature class went missing. The professor was a gifted linguist with nominal magical talent. Our investigators were able to identify fifteen different sets of DNA from the ashes scattered about the room. Our working theory is that the professor accidentally cast an incantation that killed himself and his entire class. It’s been here ever since.”
Kasey shrugged. “Seems like it could be useful, but my Sanskrit is pretty rusty. How about you?”
“English, Latin, Italian, and a little Spanish,” Strang replied with a cheeky smile. “But I can’t speak a lick of Sanskrit.”
“Show off.” Kasey laughed, pointing down the vault. “Next.”
The next artifact was a kris blade. Kasey could feel the energy emanating from the weapon without even touching it. A tangible aura of malice seemed to infect the air all about it.
“This one is believed to have been involved in a number of sacrifices. To what end, I can’t rightly say but the power it gives off gave the council pause. Our attempts to discern its purpose have failed and out of fear for what might be unleashed, it was stored here.”
“I think we should pass on the sacrificial blade,” Kasey replied. “We cant afford to account for unknowns, and a druid carrying a weapon known for human sacrifice is just going to perpetuate false stereotypes my family has been trying to avoid for hundreds of years. Hard pass.”
“And here I was worried you were going to want to play with them all,” Strang replied. “Now I’m worried we are wasting our time.”
“I’ll know it when I see it,” Kasey replied. “Believe it or not, most of my best ideas come to me on the fly.”
“That isn’t nearly as reassuring as you think it is.” Strang jammed her hands in her pockets. “Moving on.”
“You get used to it,” Kasey replied.
The next item was a massive skull, only instead of two eye sockets, it only had one and it was high up, on the forehead.
“What in the creation is that?”
“That would be the skull of Antaramos the seer, a Cyclops believed to possess the power of prescience.”
“Well, we don’t need that, now do we?” Kasey replied. “I already have that one.”
“It was said to have been possessed by some of the great generals of history. Alexander the Great, Genghis Khan. Even Napoleon was rumoured to have touched it. Each went on to win great victories. If the rumours are true, the insights might give us insight into how to beat the Summer court.”
“Feel free to give it a rub,” Kasey replied. “I can’t risk anything interfering with my own gifts.”
“None of those men were particularly well-rounded souls,” Strang replied. “Perhaps it’s best that we don’t.”
The next plinth had a pair of silver bracelets. They were more than an inch wide and covered in ancient Norse runes. Unlike the other artifacts, these appeared to give off little energy whatsoever. If it wasn’t for their presence here in the vault, Kasey would have believed them to be entirely benign.
“The bands of bracing,” Strang said. “Unlike most of the artifacts here, there is nothing uniquely dangerous about these, but the council stored them here anyway for fear of what they might enable.”
“And what’s that?” Kasey asked, stepping closer to examine them.
“They appear to enhance the human body’s capacity to channel magic without being consumed by it. The Norse practitioner who forged them had a reputation for using magic that should have melted his very brain into a puddle. Unlike the other artifacts, the council knows exactly what they do and are simply concerned they might fall into the wrong hands. Can you imagine what might have happened if Akihiro or Rhaine had got their hands on these?”
