She nodded. It would take time, but she wanted to get her thoughts straight on her own.
“Moving is going to take a lot out of you.”
She said nothing. Whatever needed to be done, Bryn would do it.
Ben said, “Okay then. I’ll call Remy to file a flight plan.”
“And Daire?” It was Amelia who asked.
Bryn watched the two of them. All the unspoken stuff with which they communicated. It seemed now to have brought them to a standoff.
Ben said, “Your uncle is going to do what he needs to do.”
But he wasn’t going to come here. Was he going after the druid? Her thoughts went back to the cellar and everything that had happened. The fox. The blood. The chants, and the smoke. Those words the druid had whispered to her.
The things he had seen in her mind.
She said, “Daire is going to get himself killed. The druid is going to destroy all of us.”
For the first time since she’d met him, Ben Mason actually looked worried.
Chapter 24
Chicago
The words DOWNTOWN CLEANING CO were emblazoned on the side of the white van. Inside were two men, one woman and a dog. The woman sat on the floor in the back, a laptop on her legs. The dog lay so the length of his back was up against her right leg, stretched out. Eyes open. One ear pricked.
The driver pulled around to the rear of the museum, and the loading entrance. He threw the lever into Park and they both got out, wearing the company’s uniform of white overalls. The logo above the left breast pocket.
The regular cleaning staff had never woken for their shift tonight, suffering the aftereffects of having been doped with a substance that would keep them asleep until well into tomorrow.
Daire and Shadrach both packed more than two weapons under their uniforms, and each had an earpiece.
“Comm check.” Remy’s voice came through.
Daire walked from the van to the back door, pulling out a key card. “I read you.”
Shadrach walked right behind him. “You okay?”
Daire shrugged. It wouldn’t convince his teammate he was okay, but that was what backup was for. “This isn’t about me, or how I feel.”
“Copy that,” Remy answered. “Shadrach?”
Shadrach said, “I’m not gonna actually to have to clean something, right?”
Remy’s chuckle echoed through Daire’s earpiece. “Heaven forbid.” She paused. “You should know, I’ve always been in favor of hiring a cleaning lady for my home.”
“Copy that.” Shadrach’s tone was laced with a whole load of humor and emotion. And promise.
Daire shot him a look rather than ask them both to focus—which would embarrass Remy.
Shadrach’s teeth flashed in the yellow glow of the street lamp. He said nothing as Daire swiped the key card and let them inside. The interior of the museum was quiet.
“Anything on your radar?” he asked Remy.
“No activity on the police band. No silent alarms. Thanks to you swiping that card, I now know the last person to leave did so an hour ago. The archeologist in charge of the European history exhibition is still there. He’s the only one who didn’t swipe out of the building today.”
“Doesn’t mean he didn’t leave. He could have slipped out when someone else had the door open, and simply forgot to swipe his card.”
Shadrach nodded his assent, and led the way inside. The interior of the hallway was dark, but that wasn’t what Daire noticed first.
Shadrach clicked on his flashlight. “It’s freezing in here.”
Daire shone the beam of his own around the walls and ceiling. It wasn’t pitch black, but too many dark corners didn’t sit well with him. He’d seen things crawl out of cover and attack. “Keep your eyes open.”
Breath misted out in front of him, a cloud of air. The leather jacket under his overalls—yes, he was wearing it—crackled as he moved, cooling with the temperature inside the building.
“Keep my eyes open?” Shadrach said. “As opposed to what? Being oblivious, and then getting killed?” His flashlight was attached to the underside of his pistol, which left both hands free to grip the weapon as he scanned the area. “Please.”
The hall opened up into a wider hall, this one lined with exhibition pieces in glass-fronted cabinets.
“Where to?”
“Left,” Daire said. “The Viking exhibition is in the west wing, one floor up.”
Shadrach turned the corner and they moved, swift and completely silent. Daire couldn’t shake that feeling of things crawling out of dark corners. The sudden launch, and attack, of a predator. His stomach clenched, which sent a shooting pain through him.
He keyed the radio. “Remy, any word on the security guard?” He spun as he walked, checking their six to make sure no one was going to ambush them from behind. The museum looked deserted. Were his senses going haywire?
Shadrach shook his shoulders. “Brrr.”
It was very cold now. “Remy, can you hack the temperature controls? Figure out why it’s so cold in here.”
“You want a pizza with that?”
As much as it was kind of annoying, Daire had to appreciate the fact she had her spunk back. “Double meat. No mushrooms.”
“I like mushrooms,” Shadrach said.
“That’s it,” Daire said to the dark of the hallway and his teammate’s back. “We can no longer be friends.”
Shadrach barked out a laugh.
Remy said, “Cameras indicate the security guard is one floor down, basement level. East wing.”
“Good.” He was nowhere near them. “Anyone else?”
“I’ve got some weird interference with the cameras. Might be the cold. There are a few rooms I can’t see.”
Shadrach asked, “Why is it so cold?”
“HVAC is functioning fine, according to what I’m looking at,” she said.
“That’s not good.” Daire might even go so far as to say it was bad. Very bad.
“The druid?” Remy asked, an edge of something in her voice.
“Dauntless is with you,” Shadrach said. “He’ll make sure no one gets in there.” The man was supremely confident in his dog. Valid, considering the animal had as much military training as the former sniper did. Still, it might have been helpful to have the animal inside the museum with them. Sniffing out potential threats.
“I know,” Remy said quietly.
Daire said, “It’s possible he’s here already. We can’t afford to underestimate the druid.” After all, he’d left Daire with his own sword stuck through his middle. It still ached, though Remy had declared the healing his body had done so far as, “remarkable.” He didn’t want to meet him now, though. He wanted the last book before the druid got his hands on it, without another run in with his enemy.
“How could he have known to come here?” Remy said. “He can’t possibly be privy to where you hid the last book.”
“I’ve learned never to assume that about him. He knows entirely too much about things he never should.” Daire didn’t understand how that happened. He had seen plenty in his life he couldn’t explain. What difference did one more thing make? It didn’t shake his faith in what he knew was true.
The druid’s intention had always been to upset that balance. To tip the world toward a darkness and chaos of his own design. Now he wanted to destroy it altogether.
“We have to assume he knows, and he’s here.” Daire shifted his arm, the hand holding the flashlight, and rubbed his forearm across his stomach. Still hurt.
“You doing okay?”
He looked up and saw Shadrach’s gaze on him. Entirely too knowing for Daire’s peace of mind. “I’m fine. How about you? You’re getting a little stiff.” He’d watched it creep in with the dip in the temperature.
Shadrach blew out a cloud of air and rolled his shoulders. “My body doesn’t do so well with low temps.”
“What?” Remy said. “Since when?”
His team
mate frowned. “I’m fine, Rem.” He didn’t look happy.
“Let’s get back on task,” Daire said, mostly for his teammate’s benefit.
Shadrach pulled open the door. “Whoa.”
The air in the stairwell was so cold ice crystals hung in the air. “Want to find another way up?”
Shadrach shot him a look. “You go first. I wouldn’t want any druid booby-traps getting me instead of you.”
Daire felt the corner of his mouth curl up. He didn’t grab the rail, just trotted up steps that were slick with ice. He made each footstep as careful as he could, rounded the landing in between floors and looked up at the door to the floor above.
“It’s covered in ice.” He keyed his radio. “Remy, are the cameras out on the second floor?”
“East wing, yes.”
“That’s where we’re headed.” And they were going in blind. He couldn’t melt the ice on the door. He lifted his foot and tried a few well-placed front kicks. “A lightsaber might be good about now.”
“I was thinking blowtorch.”
“I wouldn’t say no to that.” Daire kicked a few more times. Sweat chilled into frost on his forehead. Finally, the door broke open. The crack of ice echoed through the stairwell. The other side was even colder. “In here.”
Shadrach stepped in behind him and they both stared at the scene before them. The exhibition was a huge open area surrounded by glass cabinets. In the center, a replica of a Viking ship had been erected.
The archeologist in charge of European artifacts was strung up on the prow of the ship like a figurehead. Dead.
“Look around.”
“For what?” Shadrach said. “We should call the cops about this guy.”
“After we figure out if the druid took the book.”
“Of course he did. He was here, right?”
“So look for a blank spot where there should be a wooden box. It was inlaid with gold, and would’ve been donated to the museum by the Johansen family.”
Daire started down one side of the ship while Shadrach went to the other. Ice covered the floor in a thin layer so that it was slick, but he was more concerned with the fact there was a clear tie between Bryn and the books—and the druid seemed not to know about it.
He’d used her in other ways instead.
And yet, how could he possibly not know?
“What if this is an illusion like at the office?” Shadrach called over.
“It could be, but I don’t think so.” Daire wasn’t finding any missing spaces in the displays, so he doubled back to look at the body. “He’s back in a physical state now.” That meant more direct attacks, like shoving a sword in Daire’s stomach. Less mind games.
The druid had left the cabin to come here and get the book himself. Had he learned of the location from Bryn?
Daire rounded the bow of the ship and looked at the body, hung from the prow. Rope wrapped around the man’s legs, hips and torso, with one final loop around his neck. His body was blue, and frost had collected in his hair and eyebrows.
Daire sighed.
A tiny thread of breath escaped the man’s lips.
“Professor Hansen?” Was he alive? There were other reasons gas from his body might be escaping his mouth. Still, Daire cut the rope. Shadrach came over in time to catch him, and they lowered the archeologist to the ground.
The last archeologist they’d met had set herself on fire for the cause of bringing the druid back to life. Was this one determined to freeze them all to death?
Shadrach touched the guy’s cheek, then pulled back. “Ye-ouch. This guy is frozen stiff.”
Daire turned his head to look at the archeologist’s torso and lowered his cheek to the man’s mouth, hoping to hear more air. Breath that would indicate he wasn’t dead. Yet. Then he heard it. A faint heartbeat.
“Ambulance?” Remy asked.
“Get one here ASAP,” Daire said. “This man is alive.” He shifted to look at the man’s face, and then lifted each eyelid. “Hansen?”
“His fingers just moved,” Shadrach said, crouched beside them. His lips had turned blue as well.
Daire could withstand more cold than his teammate. “You should head out.”
“No.” Shadrach shook his head. “I’ll leave when I know this guy is being taken care of. We don’t need any more casualties from your druid’s rampage.”
“My—”
More air expelled from the older man’s mouth. Daire said, “Hansen?”
“You.” The word was a low moan, a whisper. His eyes flickered, then opened. A piercing blue that might have been scary to some, but they were a mark of this man’s people. The very culture he preserved in exhibitions like the one they were standing in.
“Don’t try to talk. An ambulance is on its way.”
His gaze moved over Daire’s face. “Same.”
Daire nodded, understanding what he meant. “I am. It’s been forty years.” Since he’d overseen the transfer of the box—and the book held within—to the museum’s inventory. The Johansen’s hadn’t wanted it, so Daire persuaded them to donate it.
“I got old.”
Daire smiled. “But you’re not gone yet.” He didn’t want to have a discussion about how Daire hadn’t aged even a day in the last forty years. “Did a man come?”
“Wanted…” His consciousness drifted.
“You don’t have to talk. We can wait for the ambulance, get you some help.”
And yet, was there time enough to wait to hear what the man said? Necessity made him inclined to force the issue. But could he live with it if he was that kind of man?
“Yggdrasil.”
“Ig-what?” Shadrach said.
Daire frowned. “In Viking mythology Yggdrasil is the All Tree. It’s the origin of the world, and all life on earth. Like the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, but more. Their entire system of belief rests on its power to create life and hold the worlds together.”
“What would the druid want with it?”
“Good question,” Daire said. He studied the man he had entrusted with the artifact, wondering that the druid had come here to ask about Yggdrasil. “Where is the box?”
Hansen said, “…don’t.”
Daire sucked in a breath, then coughed as frosted oxygen molecules reached his lungs. “Hansen, where is the box?”
“Johan...sen”
Daire waited for him to have the strength to speak again.
“Poker.”
He bit down on his molars. All the strength he had fell in on itself until there was only the pain in his stomach. “Where. Is. It?”
“Atlanta. Experience.”
“On it,” Remy said in Daire’s earpiece.
“I trusted you.” Daire had left it with the Johansen family. Then he’d allowed it to be secured here. A simple box among all the display items. But poker? Hansen had gambled with the book and lost?
“Knew,” Hansen whispered. “Druid come. I dream.”
“And so you played poker with a Johansen and lost the box back to him?”
“Just… box. But I safeguard. He didn’t…”
“It isn’t just a box.” Daire frowned. “Johansen wanted it back and he played you. He won, and you got hurt anyway.” The druid had done this because the book wasn’t here. He’d hurt this man just because he could.
“He came for it. Wanted it.” Hansen let out a choppy breath. “So angry.” His eyes clouded. “Wanted Yggdrasil.”
This was starting to make a little more sense now. The dream he’d had in the hospital after the druid stabbed him wasn’t something he was willing to share with anyone. And while he’d been set back on the right path, as it were, there had been nothing about the book in the conversation. Just the tree.
He’d bristled against that. Providence seemed more concerned about Daire’s journey, than actually defeating the druid. It was like He didn’t even care if the world He had made was destroyed. As though that wasn’t even the point.
Maybe Dai
re should’ve known better than to trust mortals with this task. It was far too volatile, pitting them up against a druid with unimaginable power. But he’d thought the druid dead. The box was supposed to have been on display, so everyone could see it and appreciate its historical and artistic importance.
“Sorry.”
Daire shook his head. “It’s my fault.” There was no other way he could look at this.
Shadrach moved to get up, but fell. He planted one hand on the ice covered floor. “Whoa.” He wasn’t reacting to the fall though. His attention was on the man who’d just walked in.
The security guard glanced around, wide eyed. “What on earth?”
Shadrach managed to get to his feet, one arm and one leg distinctly unsteady. He lifted the hand not holding his gun. “Easy, friend. This man is hurt, and there’s an ambulance on the way.”
“You aren’t the cleaning crew. Why is it so cold in here?” The security guard stepped farther inside and hit a button on the wall. “What is going on?”
“He just activated a security alarm.” Remy’s anxious voice came through his earpiece.
Daire locked eyes with Shadrach and nodded. He looked down. “I’m sorry, Hansen.”
“Ambulance just pulled up outside,” Remy said.
Daire stood. He and Shadrach both backed up, then made a break for it. They went in different directions around the great ship in the center.
“Hey!”
The guard could only go after one of them.
Shadrach fired his gun in a warning shot. The security guard yelped. Daire’s boot slipped on a slick patch of ice but he caught his footing and started to run toward the door at the other end of the exhibition. The professor would be taken care of. That would happen whether Daire and Shadrach were in jail as murder suspects, or not. And he preferred not to be accused of attempted murder.
Daire hit the safety bar on the exit door and they headed down the chilled stairwell. They came out of the building on the ground floor on the opposite side from where they’d parked the van. After what had happened in the last stairwell, his stomach roiled with nervousness. “Remy?”
Forgotten Page 20
