A Knight of Cold Graves (The Revenant Reign Book 1)

by Clara Coulson

  He almost swallowed the grape whole. “What now?”

  She tapped his wrist with two fingers, right where the sliver of Excalibur’s box was embedded beneath his skin. “Several intricately designed protective wards have been carved into the interior lining of the box. Right now, they’re inactive because Kim Ballard’s life energy dispersed once her soul crossed over.

  “We can reactivate them by infusing them with someone else’s life energy. However, the box is missing a piece, and that piece has a tiny part of one ward carved into it. We need to extract it from your arm and reattach it to the box.”

  Tanner furrowed his brow. “You need to perform surgery on me?”

  “Minor surgery,” she stressed. “All I have to do is numb you with local, make a tiny incision, and pluck the sliver out with some tweezers. Should take all of five minutes.”

  “And we’re going to do this surgery…in the basement?”

  “Infirmary’s still full.” She shrugged. “And I spent all damn night in there putting people back together. This is the first chance I’ve had in seven hours to get a breath of fresh air, and I won’t get another until the healer dispatched from the Boston PTAD office arrives…sometime today.

  “So yes, we’re taking a nice stroll to the basement. Or rather, the subbasement. The museum and vaults are underneath the library.”

  Tanner gulped at the mention of the library, and the remains of his grape slid down his throat like sand. “Do we have to go through the library to get to the subbasement?”

  “Yeah, why?” She raised an eyebrow. “I thought you’d like a library tour. You’re an academic, aren’t you?”

  “Normally, I love libraries.” He idly fiddled with his fruit cup. “It’s just that your library kind of creeps me out. The door mysteriously opened when I walked past it last night.”

  Laura chuckled. “Oh, don’t worry about that. The library has the ability to identify people who will need to do research with its contents in the near future. It labeled you as one such person and opened the door to invite you inside.”

  Tanner stared at her. “Are you saying the library is alive?”

  “No, I’m saying it’s psychic.” She grabbed his wrist and tugged him forward. “Now, come on. Roland’s waiting on us, and he’s not a patient man.”

  Dumbfounded, Tanner tailed her down the hall.

  Sable wights, manticores, harpies, nymphs, and vampires…those I can understand, he thought. But sentient libraries? How can a room have a mind of its own?

  Apparently, he was about to find out.

  When they arrived at the library entrance, one of the ornate doors was open a crack, just like it had been the night before.

  “Huh,” Laura said. “It usually doesn’t open a door for the same person twice. Guess you’ll have a lot of work to do in the library in the coming weeks.”

  Tanner wasn’t sure he wanted to do any work in this library.

  Opening the door all the way, Laura ushered him inside. He tentatively inched through the doorway, until the bright light of the hall gave way to the soft yellow glow of the library’s interior. As Tanner’s eyes adjusted, he realized he was standing at the top of a masterfully carved oak staircase that overlooked a sprawling room roughly the same size as the main floor of the Weatherford College library.

  Row upon row of bookcases so tall they almost touched the ceiling stretched from the base of the stairs all the way to the back wall, with one narrow lane running down the center of the room. Every ten or so feet along this lane, a round study table had been placed, and many of the chairs were occupied by PTAD employees doing research on some topic or another. Old leather-bound books were piled high around them, at odds with their modern laptops.

  The whole library had been built from rich, dark wood and done up with gold sconces and lush antique carpets. It looked like a room that had been transplanted from a European university constructed in the early half of the last millennium, not a turn-of-the-century home library.

  Awed gaze sweeping left and right, cataloguing every stellar example of woodcarving, Tanner couldn’t imagine why the Renaults had committed to such a massive architectural undertaking.

  And the books, he thought excitedly. There’s not a single book in the room that was printed in this century.

  His unease forgotten, Tanner hurried down the stairs and over to the nearest shelf, which contained an assortment of atlases and maps. Some of the maps were so old, they were encased in clear protective covers, the paper fragmenting from the ravages of time.

  There were oceanic maps from seafaring civilizations dating back hundreds of years, maps of ancient routes between the Middle East and Asia during the heyday of the spice trade, maps of kingdoms and countries that hadn’t existed for—

  “Ahem,” said Laura, who’d walked up behind him. “You can peruse the library after we finish with Roland, and after you get a pass from the head librarian.”

  Heat crept up Tanner’s neck. “Sorry. I get a little excited about original documents.”

  “I can tell.” She hooked her arm around his and led him away from the shelf.

  As they strolled down the center lane, skirting around each table, dozens upon dozens of items caught Tanner’s eye. First editions of classic novels. Original prints of critical essays from long-defunct publications. Books with no titles that had obscure symbols etched into their covers. The list went on.

  I could spend a lifetime in here and never finish reading all the things that interest me.

  “What was that about a pass?” he asked quietly, not wanting to disturb the patrons.

  “Everything in this library,” Laura answered, “was either donated by, purchased from, or confiscated from somebody in the preternatural underground. While many of the items in the library aren’t magical, there are a fair number that possess preternatural aspects, including some”—she pointed to a bookcase that had several rows blocked off with thick glass cases—“that can harm you in myriad ways if you don’t follow the proper procedures when handling them.

  “Thus, before someone is allowed to roam the library freely, they must read the training manual on those proper procedures, take a written test, and have an interview with the head librarian. If you get a satisfactory score on the test and pass muster during the interview, you get a library pass.”

  She gestured to a gap between two bookcases, where a circulation desk had been placed. A stern older woman sat behind the desk, circular glasses perched on her nose. She was reading a thick tome with some kind of magical properties. Every time she turned a page, a white candle on the desk lit all by itself, and she had to use an antique candle snuffer to put it out.

  “I see what you mean about proper procedures,” Tanner murmured.

  “Mhmm,” was Laura’s only reply.

  At the back end of the library lay another set of fancy doors. In order to pass through these, Laura had to place all five fingers of her right hand on the edge of a magic circle painted onto the wall. The circle flared green for a second, before a series of heavy locks disengaged on the other side of the doors.

  Laura then hauled one of the doors open, straining every inch of the way, which revealed that the door was five inches thick. The first two inches were made of the same wood as the library. The last three were made of solid steel.

  And now it’s creepy again, Tanner thought as he entered a dark stairwell.

  The spiral stairwell was made of damp, uneven stone, as if the structure had been lifted from an actual castle, and the small sconces on the walls were so far apart that deep shadows stretched from ceiling to floor, like physical barriers trying to block the path to the subbasement.

  As Tanner cautiously followed Laura down the steps, he kept catching flickers of light in the corner of his eye. A couple times, the flashes resolved into symbols. He slowly came to understand that the oppressive atmosphere of the stairwell wasn’t entirely due to its unsettling design.

  The stairwell was lined with a
web of constantly shifting wards.

  They really don’t want anyone getting into the subbasement uninvited. Or maybe they don’t want something getting out…

  At least four stories beneath the library, they came to a third set of double doors. This set lacked all the pageantry of the others. It was just two plain steel doors. A group of three small magic circles had been carved into the face of one door, and when Laura approached, all three circles flashed red.

  For the first one, Laura pressed her fingers to the edge like she had upstairs. For the second, she leaned forward and aligned the center of her right eye with the central dot in the circle. And for the third, she rhythmically tapped her index finger against a trio of squares inside the circle, inputting some sort of passcode.

  When she finished tapping in the code, all three circles flashed green simultaneously, and four huge bolt locks on the other side of the doors retracted, producing a loud grating noise.

  Laura grabbed the handle of one door and put so much effort into pulling it that Tanner almost asked if she wanted some help. But the door did indeed move at Laura’s behest, one grinding inch at a time, until it was open just enough for both of them to squeeze on through.

  They did so in a timely manner, and before Tanner could offer to close the door so Laura didn’t have to, the door slammed shut with a thunderous bang behind him. He looked over his shoulder in time to watch the enormous locks slide back into place of their own accord.

  Now they were locked in the subbasement with all the dangerous stuff the PTAD hid down here.

  I wonder how many things are going to try to eat me today? Tanner thought sardonically.

  The subbasement really was laid out like a museum. Along the walls sat numerous glass display cases, and each contained a diverse assortment of items—everything from Victorian-era automatons to simple plastic buttons—that had something in common. That something wasn’t necessarily an origin, according to the metal plaques affixed to each case, but rather the effects that the items had on the world around them.

  Some of the more colorful descriptions claimed the items behind the glass could: “control the weather,” “kill people on skin contact,” “seek out targets on their own,” “distort spacetime,” and Tanner’s personal favorite, “compel people to dance themselves to death.”

  Needless to say, every single display case was warded to the teeth. So much so that a low hum of power perpetually resonated through the subbasement, an ominous white noise.

  Laura led Tanner to the right, down a hallway that branched off the subbasement’s main room. Tanner was pleased to find this hall lined not with display cases but with vaults of all sizes and shapes. Agent Smith stood before one of the smaller vaults, the box containing Excalibur on the floor beside him.

  Their footsteps alerted him to their approach. He perked up, waving for them to hurry along so he could return to whatever tasks he performed on the daily in what was presumably a large, well-lit, and lavishly furnished head honcho office.

  Whether the man was busy or not, Tanner understood his desire to return upstairs ASAP.

  It was really creepy down here.

  “Morning, Mr. Reiz,” Smith said. “Sorry to drag you down into this cabinet of curiosities, but I do need to mop up all the lingering matters related to this case. The suits back in DC are already displeased with the outcome. Best not to aggravate them further with a sloppy cleanup job.”

  “That’s all it is to the bigwigs, huh?” Tanner muttered. “A mess to be cleaned up?”

  “That’s all anything ever is to bureaucrats.” He gestured to the box. “Now, I was told this should be a short, simple process.”

  “Yup.” Laura pulled one side of her white coat open and tugged from within a hidden pocket a plastic bag full of medical supplies. A syringe loaded with local anesthesia. An alcohol pad. A few sterile gauze pads. A couple band-aids. A scalpel. And a pair of tweezers with narrow, pointy tips.

  “Hold out your arm please, Mr. Reiz,” she said, “and I’ll do it all real quick. The only thing you’ll feel is the stick from the needle. You went through a hell of a lot worse yesterday, so I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  “Yeah, it can’t really get much worse than that.” Tanner tugged up his shirtsleeve and offered her his wrist.

  As promised, Laura worked swiftly. She swabbed his wrist, injected the anesthetic, and then made a tiny incision. Tweezers pinched tightly in her hand, she made a grab for the sliver, like a bird going for a worm, and caught it on the first try. She let out a breathy “ha” and jerked the sliver free from Tanner’s arm, raising it high as if it was a trophy.

  She wiped the sliver clean with a piece of gauze and handed it off to Smith. He dropped to one knee and traced the edge of the box until he found the defect where the sliver had detached.

  As he worked to push it back into place, Laura patched up Tanner’s wrist. “There. All done,” she said, smoothing out a wrinkle in the band-aid.

  “That should do,” Smith said. He’d pushed the sliver back into its proper place, though you could see a small seam where the break had occurred.

  “Will that stay in place without glue?” Tanner asked, then immediately chided himself. That was probably a dumb question.

  But Smith didn’t act like he’d said something stupid. “Once I reactivate all the protections on the box,” he answered, “the resulting energy field will hold that piece in place.”

  Laura pointed at the open vault, which was five feet off the ground. “You need some help getting it up there? I know there’s only a sword in the box, but it looks heavy.”

  “It is heavy. It’s lined with lead.” Smith rolled his shoulders back. “But I can lift it on my own. How do you think it got down here in the first place?”

  She shrugged. “I assumed you used any one of ten magical devices that are designed to help people transport heavy objects.”

  Smith scowled. “You know, I probably should have. I nearly threw out my back. But I was in such a hurry…” He clicked his tongue. “Dealing with Washington always makes me feel like I’m being chased by vampires, a bunch of bloodsucking leeches breathing down my neck.”

  “Hear, hear,” Tanner murmured.

  “Anyway…” Smith suddenly recited a spell incantation.

  A large arc of electric-yellow energy jumped from his chest into the box, and the entire box lit up the same color. But the glow wasn’t diffuse. Rather, it emanated from a startlingly complex array of razor-thin shapes and symbols etched across every inch of the box, forming a design so finely detailed that Tanner couldn’t even imagine how long it had taken to draw.

  Some segments of that wondrously artful array hit chords in Tanner’s revenant memories. Fragments of late nights in study chambers bathed in candlelight flashed behind his eyes, the wizard named Merlin working side by side with Nimuë, the vaunted Lady of the Lake.

  This is Kim’s work. Tanner’s heart ached. She was so talented a practitioner, and she died so young…

  Agent Smith gave the box a quick look to make sure all the spells were functioning properly, and then hefted it up as if it weighed no more than a cardboard box filled with Styrofoam packing pellets. He slid the box onto the lower shelf of the vault, heaved the thick vault door closed, turned the handle to lock it, and reactivated the wards on the door.

  “And there we have it,” Smith said. “One Excalibur, legendary sword of King Arthur, secured in vault number one-six-three. One more task I can tick off the list.”

  “You think it’ll be safe down here?” Tanner asked. “I mean, a harpy did break through your wards last night.”

  Smith shook his head. “That was due to an unfortunate oversight. Most of the wards in the courtyard were originally designed by the Renaults, and because no one had tried to breach the building through the courtyard before, we weren’t aware that there was a security vulnerability there.

  “Turns out that the Renaults were lax with the courtyard wards because they wanted to en
sure the energy fields didn’t disrupt the plant growth, which made the ward array a bit weaker than it would’ve been otherwise. As of five AM this morning, that vulnerability has been remedied.

  “The next time a harpy, or anything else, tries to breach the property that way”—he slammed his fist into his palm—“it will go splat like a bug on a windshield.”

  Tanner slowly nodded. “Good to know.”

  Smith made a spinning motion with his hand. “We’re done here, so let’s head back up. The museum can get a little restless if people loiter down here too long.”

  “Oh, don’t tell me the museum is alive too,” Tanner groaned.

  Laura barked out a laugh. “Are you kidding? The museum is ten times more sentient than the library.”

  “Wonderful.” Tanner tugged at his shirt collar, suddenly feeling as if the walls were closing in. “Absolutely wonderful.”

  “Don’t worry too much about it, Mr. Reiz. The museum doesn’t usually harm any visitors that don’t intend to harm it.” Smith put a hand on Tanner’s shoulder and turned him around. “Now, before I send you home, we have a few more things to discuss regarding your status as a revenant wizard and your continued involvement with the PTAD as a civilian entity. Namely, we need to work out a training regimen, so you can learn how to properly defend yourself from preternaturals who mean you ill. And I think a great place to start would be the PTAD training academy.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  Saul

  Depending on who you asked, The Gray Cloak was either a bar sandwiched between a barbershop and a Laundromat, or an empty building that had had a for sale sign stuck to the front door for twenty years.

  To enter The Gray Cloak, you had to approach through the back lot and step through a series of faded chalk squares on the asphalt. The exact pattern in which you had to step changed weekly. Those friendly with the bar’s owner, Donnelly, were gifted this passcode pattern in the form of a piece of paper that appeared in a pocket or a purse at the stroke of noon each Monday.