"Yeah," Fire answered, fidgeting in her seat. "The book talks about a ritual. It talks about The Queen of Sheba and how she was a witch who refused to properly submit to King Solomon, maybe, and how she had this thing that we’re pretty sure is The Eye of Africa and that there’s rumored to be some ritual that she created with it that could give someone ultimate power or whatever. But the book is really bible-y, and it’s mostly a lot of Satan-this and witchcraft-that, and you really don’t want anyone to know about this, so how about they maybe ought to avoid the Old Testament--"
"If we had a Jewish or a Muslim source," Doubt chimed in, "then we might have a better chance at getting information. Maybe."
"But there is one thing that we got that might be worth investigating," Plague said.
Ruby perked up a bit. She had been afraid that the book they’d found might be too churchy, but that was sadly the price to pay for having books that dated back to the invention of the printing press. Christianity had the market cornered on the written word for a whole lot of years, and any codex of a certain age was inevitably going to be tainted by liturgical concerns.
"What’s that?" she asked. They hadn’t come here en masse to tell her they had nothing.
"It refers to some scrolls. Jewish scrolls," Fire elaborated, turning to look at Doubt beside her on the sofa.
"There might be some information on some scrolls," Doubt conceded.
"Oh, but let me guess," Ruby said back, "they’re under the Smithsonian? Or the British Museum? Or they’re being held in some top-secret location in Jerusalem because only the holiest of holinesses or whatever can look on them or they’re afraid of terrorists? Or something?"
Ruby rolled her eyes again. She had a passing familiarity with religion, and she was reasonably well versed in a number of traditions. But she’d never had any affinity for faiths, especially the big, monotheistic ones. And her last experience having anything at all to do with religions had left a very, very bad taste in her mouth. If she absolutely had to pick one of them to have to deal with in this instance, she supposed she should at least be pleased it was Judaism; they were the least crazy about most things, and she had at least a modicum of respect for their mystical traditions.
"It’s across town," Ruin said plainly.
"I’m sorry, what?" Ruby replied, sitting up straighter in her chair. An intrigued frown descended involuntarily onto her face. "It’s where?"
"It’s part of a touring exhibit," Plague chimed in.
"And that exhibit is where?" Ruby quizzed. She wasn’t so much wanting details right now, but knowing there was an ancient document that hadn’t been tampered with by Catholicism that referred to the Eye of Africa and might have some information for her as to how she could go about getting its power--and knowing exactly where she might find such a thing--well, those were important matters.
"At the Cultural History Museum," Fire told her with a shrug.
"They’re thousands of years old," Doubt asserted. "And they’re in Aramaic. Even if they are the same scrolls the book mentions, which there’s actually no guarantee that they are--"
"Discontent said the name the book calls the scrolls and the name the anthropologists at the museum think belongs to the scrolls is the same name," Decay piped up for the first time today.
"And how did Discontent know what the anthropologists say is the name that belongs to them?" Ruby asked. If she hadn’t so much as known these scrolls existed, much less that they were being studied in a museum in her own city, she had to wonder how it was that one of the Blights could have known so much about it.
"Mrs. Stevens sits on the board," Ruin answered. "Discontent has been around the scrolls already because of hanging around with your boyfriend’s wife."
Ruby winced and then chuckled. The idea of a woman her age and in her position having someone in her life referred to as a "boyfriend" seemed quite preposterous, and the idea of billionaire superhero Jaccob Stevens having that title applied to him more so.
"Of course she’s on the board," Ruby groaned. A few years back, Elizabeth Stevens had quit her job working in the upper echelon of Starcom to be a full-time philanthropist. It was no surprise at all to hear she was on the board of the Cultural History Museum. "So the scrolls we need," she began again, shifting back to the topic at hand, "they’re in some vault at the Cultural History Museum. We can handle that, right? The last vault we broke into was in a goddamned police station. A museum can’t be any harder, can it?"
"Not in a vault," Doubt declared flatly.
Ruby frowned. "I’m not following."
Doubt shrugged and continued. "The scrolls," she said, "they’re not in a vault. They’re out on exhibit. They’re in some glass cases out in the open where people can ooh and ahh and be impressed by the ancient Aramaic calligraphy or whatever."
"So they’re just out in the open?" Ruby asked. Her mind was spinning. "We can just go and look at them?"
"Yeah," Fire affirmed.
"And that makes them harder to steal," Doubt pointed out. "They’re in view of the public all day long and patrolled by actual security guards all night. It’d be easier if they were in a vault."
The gears in Ruby’s head were turning. Could it really be this easy? She leaned forward in her chair and rested her elbows on her knees. "Maybe we don’t need to steal anything," she suggested quietly.
"I beg your pardon?" Plague asked, his mouth full of candy.
Ruby shrugged. "What if we don’t need to steal the scrolls?" she asked rhetorically. "If they’re out on exhibit and the whole public can have a look, then that means we can have a look. And if we can look at them, and we can read them, then there’s every chance we can learn either A: what’s left of the scrolls doesn’t have the information we need and we’re back to square one or, B: that I can perform this ritual they describe based on just having read the scrolls and having them physically present isn’t necessary. Now, there’s always the chance that it turns out the magic is in the scrolls, and I’m going to need them in my hands to get what I want out of them, in which case we’re going to have to figure out how to steal them anyway. But if they’re really just out in the open and publicly accessible, then I think our best move is to go to the museum and see." She was met with a chorus of nods from the Blights.
"Worst case scenario," she continued, "we’ve had a chance to case the joint, which will be helpful if we wind up having to steal the scrolls."
More nods. Even Doubt seemed to be on board with the plan. This was an interesting and promising development. Ruby had been sure there would be some way to concoct a ritual to absorb the power of the Eye into herself, but she hadn’t even begun to imagine there would be one already in existence. The idea that there was such a rite, and that it purportedly originated with the creator of the object was almost too good to be true. She could only hope there was enough information in those scrolls to allow her to successfully replicate it.
And there was only one way to find out.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The Cobalt City Museum of Cultural History was one of those buildings that could not have been mistaken for anything other than a museum. It was a too-large stone and glass building erected in the waning years of the nineteenth century, when building large museums was in vogue. All along the East Coast, these mammoth museums had sprung up, many of them almost identical to this one. In typical fashion, the museum sported a large rotunda in the front and a pair of two-story wings stretching from each side with small rooms off either end, forming a misshapen letter H. It sat across the street from the Cobalt City central library, a building of similar design erected in the same era. There was a bus stop directly in front of the museum that had been there since the "bus" was a rail cart pulled by a team of horses. Traffic in the area was always snarled, and there was painfully inadequate parking available.
The museum’s ticket booth was housed in a temporary building out front with the Starcom Foundation logo emblazoned prominently on both sides. Ruby made he
r driver circle the block until she saw the Blights assembled in front of the blue-black structure. She had made sure they had the money for their own tickets; she wasn’t about to let on that they were all there together. And she wasn’t about to be the one waiting. She was surprised, but pleased all the same, to see Discontent out front with the others. It would be good to have that resource available, although there was every chance that Ruin and Decay would have the power to read the aging, crumbling scrolls.
That was the thing with Ruin and Decay--everything came under their purview eventually. And these scrolls were thousands of years old. The photos Ruby had been able to bring up on her phone seemed to show they were in pretty rough condition. That meant that between the understandings of Ruin and Decay, what writing was left visible should be readily decipherable. And even if it wasn’t readable by either of them, even if it wasn’t readable by the combined powers of all the Blights put together, that was hardly the end of the world.
Ruby had become attuned enough to the Eye of Africa in the days it had taken her to plan this little museum excursion that she had been tempted to bring it along. She’d grown relatively confident she would be able to shield its presence, or at least the level of its power, from prying eyes were she to bring it out in public. The only real danger she saw was that she still wasn’t sure how the spirits who spoke to this alleged young superhero Jaccob seemed to be counting on to help with the case figured in to things. Her best guess was that storing the Eye in a natural earth box was probably enough to keep them out. Ruby was no expert on spirits, but her understanding was they couldn’t penetrate solid earth. The likelihood was that they would know there was something afoot--between the earthen box and the magical ward she’d cast around it--but they wouldn’t be able to figure out what or why. Ruby still held that out as an option for a subsequent trip if she and the Blights weren’t able to decipher the scrolls today.
The Scrolls of Solomon, as they had been christened by the marketing geniuses who’d sent them on world tour, were being housed in the West Back Room of the museum. The space had originally been intended to house an exhibit on Cobalt City’s superheroes, but the library across the street had opened first and claimed that exhibit as its own. The feud between the two cultural institutions lasted to this day. But the net result was that the museum had an empty exhibit space that over the years had played host to everything from King Tut’s golden sandals to the props used to make some of Hollywood’s least successful science fiction franchises. Today it housed the Scrolls of Solomon.
The special exhibit required its own ticket, over and above the admission price to the museum. Ruby didn’t give a damn about the money--an extra hundred or so bucks at this point literally did not matter. But the added security of a separate queue, complete with fraying velvet ropes, carpet runners that may have once been red, and the vest-clad, lanyard-wearing, terribly chipper elderly docent (who took her job way too seriously) really did. The banners and dramatic up-lighting, the bizarre theme music being piped through blown speakers, and the giant placards banning everything from backpacks to selfie sticks were all too much. The prohibitions against photography were particularly bothersome. She’d had a thought that maybe getting photos of the scrolls would come in handy.
Ruby had never liked it when the same rules applied to her as to everyone else. Most of the time, wealth, power, privilege, and fame had done enough to keep that from happening. But she knew better than trying to play any of that to her advantage any place where Elizabeth Stevens had considerable influence. Today she was doing all she could do to fly under the radar. But she still didn’t like being treated like the proletariat. Having to show her ticket to the attendant at the exhibit entrance was annoying. For a moment, Ruby wished she had brought along the Eye of Africa, because without its presence, she couldn’t be completely sure the little curse she’d whispered at the woman was going to do the trick. She decided to ask Plague to help her out before they left.
It took a few minutes for the group of them to all make it into the exhibit space together. There was a limit on the number of people the museum was allowing in to see the scrolls at one time. Ruby had picked a day and time for this visit when she thought the place would be at its least crowded, but she hadn’t figured on the entire sixth grade from Cabot Academy being there on a field trip. Luckily, Ruin and Decay were at least a head taller than the average sixth grader and they were able to get a look even when the crowd was thick around the Scrolls.
The Scrolls of Solomon were laid out in sequence in a series of a shy-dozen credenzas arranged in a horseshoe around three sides of the square room. The cases had glass tops and a series of buttons along the edge. Each button activated one of the recessed drawers in the cabinet, bringing out on view for a minute before automatically recessing back into the dark, climate controlled cubby where it was kept. There were four segments to a credenza, some of them impossibly small, and only one drawer could be out at a time.
This was going to take hours. Fortunately, Ruin and Decay had already gotten to work. She had bought each of the Blights a burner phone and insisted they return the custodian’s Starphone to where they had found it. The twins each had theirs secreted in their hand and were reading the text into them as best they could. Hopefully the recordings would be enough to begin decoding the ritual of the Eye. Discontent was angling for a spot just behind them and appeared prepared to do as they were doing.
But then what looked like a genuine smile came across Discontent’s face, and they stepped away from the exhibit with a mildly excited wave. It seemed off to see Discontent smiling; it just felt wrong somehow. The smile itself was a little bit wrong, too, betraying the fact that its wearer didn’t have much experience with smiling and wasn’t quite sure how it was supposed to go.
Ruby’s own smile grew similarly strained when she followed Discontent’s path with her eyes and realized what had caused this strangely pleasant greeting to begin with.
Elizabeth Stevens had just walked into the room. If Ruby had to make a list of all the people in the whole entire world who she did not want to run into while she was trying to get work done, Elizabeth Stevens would be at the top of it. In fact, she may have been the totality of it. But she was here, and there was nothing that could be done about it. Fortunately, Discontent seemed to be managing her, and there was a distinct possibility Ruby could get out of here without ever being seen by her lover’s wife.
But she really did want to have a look at the Scrolls of Solomon with her own eyes. She was terribly curious as to what reaction this stirring from the Eye of Africa she could feel possessing her might have to the viewing or the hearing of the words of its ritual. Between the sea of children and the woman in the back of the room, it seemed as though she might not get that chance today.
As frustrating as that was, Ruby had to remind herself the museum would still be here tomorrow. The exhibit wasn’t scheduled to leave until sometime in the fall, so making a strategic retreat today would be a setback, but not a disaster. Still, she was sorely tempted to ask Plague to wander over to that side of the room for an introduction. The only thing that stopped her from doing that was the notion that, were Elizabeth Stevens were to come down with monkey pox or Ebola or something of the like, Jaccob would wind up having his kids around more often, and that would get in the way of their growing relationship.
Ruby wondered, almost idly, if maybe Pestilence could get a mouse to run up her rival’s skirt or a hornet to sting her. That would be almost as good as monkey pox. She’d pulled her Starphone from her purse to send him a message when she felt a tap on her shoulder.
Ruby felt her whole body start. Her shoulders tensed and her mouth fixed itself into a snarl. Nobody but nobody touched Ruby Killingsworth without her consent. She was quivering with rage as she turned slowly to face her assailant, who was speaking softly to her.
"Excuse me, ma’am," a young docent in her green vest and sensible shoes addressed her. "But there are no photos allowed
in here."
Ruby narrowed her eyes at the young woman. She could feel the magic rising to match her anger as she replied to the stranger. "I know that," she said back with an air of calm in her voice edged with just enough authority she could tell the other woman was already feeling small. "And I wasn’t taking a picture, I was sending a message. And now I’m finished."
"Well, we don’t allow pictures," the young woman repeated, as though she hadn’t heard a word Ruby had said in reply.
Ruby shook her head and stepped away. She hadn’t ever met the young docent’s gaze throughout this exchange, instead keeping her gaze cast in the direction of Fire and Plague, who were hanging near the door, ready to make a distraction happen if necessary. Assuring Ruin and Decay adequate access to the scrolls was paramount, and the two near the door were only along to create mayhem if needed in furtherance of that goal. Plague knew exactly what she needed from him at that moment, as he was rushing to her side while Fire stood clearly poised to do some harm if called upon. Ruby was going to hate it when she had to return these Blights to Loki; this level of service from magically active beings was awfully hard to come by. There was definitely something to be said for borrowing minions from a God.
"Is there something wrong, Miss Killingsworth?" Plague asked as he approached, with the urgency of a bodyguard ready to call in SWAT. She and Plague exchanged a look that told the Blight everything he needed to know. He stopped and stood between the two women like a night club bouncer who saw a fight ready to break out.
"This horribly mistaken, egregiously underpaid person in ugly shoes--" she replied, her face deadpan, her voice as cool as if she were describing the color of the floor. "--thought incorrectly that I was in violation of the museum’s no photography rule--when what I was actually doing was sending an email with billions of dollars’ worth of implications. And in her misplaced zeal to enforce the rules to which she is bound, she chose to put her hands on me without my consent."
Rites & Desires Page 17
