“Did Maeve take the scroll with her?”
Aisling opened her door. The scroll in question was one Maeve received under mysterious circumstances years ago and had kept hidden all of that time. Aisling found it when Maeve and all of her belongings had vanished. Harlie couldn’t translate it as it was locked to Maeve. He’d been teaching her an ancient elven dialect so that she could translate it herself. Progress had been slow to say the least.
“I doubt it. Unless you took it out of my case.” The scroll was an unknown power and something Nix had been desperate to find. To keep it safe, Aisling kept it in her opal charged case, the one she kept her family clan earring in. Only she or Harlie could open it.
“I did not. However, I believe she needs to have it with her there. That was where it was given to her, so that is where we find its secrets.” He’d been muttering more to himself than her. He suddenly looked up. “Bring your clan jewelry. Caradoc and I should as well. We might need to enforce our actions over there.”
Aisling wanted to find out what he meant but really needed to lie down before dinner. She nodded and shut her door. She walked over to the opal charged case and lifted the lid. The scroll was tucked in behind her ruby earring. The earring would start at the tip of her ear, with a single magic charged ruby, then a delicate chain led to a string of smaller rubies and connected to her ear-lobe. All higher-level elves had these earrings and other forms of clan jewelry. Aisling only wore hers when she had to. She wasn’t proud to be part of her mother’s clan.
Chapter Fifteen
“Wakey, wakey. Time for dinner.”
Aisling tossed and fought to open her eyes. She’d only meant to rest but ended up falling asleep and having weird dreams that were no more than disturbing emotional remnants as she fought to ignore Maeve’s voice.
Her eyes opened. “Maeve? Aren’t you supposed to be on a plane?” She might be sleep confused, but that was definitely Maeve hovering over her.
“Should have been. But apparently the airlines are worried about the recent building drops in the L.A. area and are waiting twenty-four hours before resuming flights. I had a cab drop me a block away from here so no one would see me walk through the hedge.” She shrugged. “You have to admit it would be dangerous if some random piece of Area 42 appeared mid-air where a plane happened to be.”
Aisling rolled herself out of bed. “You don’t seem upset.”
“I’m not. I love to go back; England is my home. But I don’t like being ordered about by an entity that couldn’t even cover my arse when I was trying to help them.”
Maeve had supposedly gone home to help her family a while ago. But it turned out she was trying to help a former MI-6 boss—who was already dead when she got there. MI-6 wasn’t as helpful as they could have been and Maeve ended up being secretly flown back to the U.S. as a prisoner for trade. The more she’d found out about what MI-6 knew and what they didn’t do, the more pissed she became.
“Okay.” Aisling rubbed her eyes and stretched. The dream had vanished, but she still felt the edges of it.
Maeve took her arm. “Are you okay? You look out of sorts.”
“A weird and terrifying dream that I can’t recall.” She reached around Maeve and shut the door. “And I had some things to think about.” She told Maeve about Reece.
“That sucks.” Maeve gave her a hug. “I’m not even sure how to process that.”
“You and me both. Harlie knows because I need him to figure out if something magic did go through that could have modified my perceptions. But I don’t want anyone else to know.”
“Good idea. It’s going to be weird between you two, though. This is a sharp group; they’ll pick up that something is off.”
She hadn’t gone that far in her thoughts yet. “You’re right. They know I was pissed at him for blowing me off, we’ll just keep letting the others think that’s the issue. I’m sure once we get to England he and Jones will have their own agenda. They might be making us honorary Area 42 agents, but it’s for their benefit, not ours. Reece and Jones will be doing something beyond us, I’m sure.” She pushed aside what would happen if it turned out Reece was magically influencing her. Not only would that bring their budding relationship to a quick end, but what if he was unconsciously manipulating others? They wouldn’t turn him into the Council, but he’d be too dangerous to keep out in the world.
“Not a great look, love.” Maeve peered at her.
“Sorry. Just thinking what our options would be if he is actually exhibiting siren powers. Uncontrolled siren powers. That’s a problem.”
“That’s an understatement. Come on, he’s not in the house and neither is Jones, just the family. And Mott.”
“I thought he was going back home to get his stuff?” She’d do better if she just didn’t think about Reece at all for a bit. After a solid week of being pissed at him, it shouldn’t be too hard.
“Caradoc’s taking him over after dinner. Come on.”
Dinner was an odd conglomeration of a lot of food that would go bad while they were gone. Mott was staying behind but he couldn’t eat everything, so Caradoc had pulled what he could together. They were just sitting down when a knock came at the door.
“Are you expecting anyone?” Maeve was the closest so she went for the door but held back from opening it. She didn’t have a weapon, but looked ready to jump whoever came through the door.
“No.” Caradoc joined her. He had his hand raised for a spell. No one should even know this place existed, let alone be able to get through the hedge.
“It could just be Jones or Larkin, you know.” Mott was focused on piling tuna casserole left overs on his plate.
“You’re the one who says suspect everything.” Caradoc shook his head and nodded to Maeve to open the door.
“Sorry to barge in like this, but I’ve brought dessert.” Stella stood there just as if she’d come from next door and the house wasn’t hidden within a magically secured hedge.
“How did you find us?” Caradoc asked as he and Maeve stepped aside to let her in. She had a large cake box with her.
“I have my ways, my boy. Not everything has to be known to you.”
Mott looked up. “You tracked the equipment from Larkin’s room.”
“He is such a bright lad.” Stella went to the table, sat down her box, and handed Mott a cookie from inside it. “There ya go.” She turned to the others with a frown. “I had a feeling you were up to something. I picked up on the report on the sinkholes, both here and the one outside of London. Something bad is coming, mark my words.”
“You’re right. We’re all flying out to London tomorrow to look into that sinkhole.” Caradoc motioned toward an empty seat. “I welcome you to our table.”
Stella smiled. “I would love to join you all. Rare it is that I get to eat something I didn’t make. So when are we flying out?”
“I don’t know that they’re going to let us loop you in.” Aisling picked through the hodgepodge of food. “Besides, can you leave the diner for any length of time?” The diner itself wasn’t so much the issue, but Reece’s spy room needed to be secured. Alarms only went so far.
“Oh, the Area 42 folks don’t need to know why I’m over there, it’s none of their business. I have friends over there whom I haven’t seen in a long time and are due for a visit. As for the diner, Grundog and Reg are coming down to keep watch. Shorter hours than I normally have it open, they really don’t like a lot of people, so keeping their exposure down is a good idea. But they know about the room. I want to give them access, but only Reece can set that up.” She looked around. “I thought he’d be here.”
“No. He had things to address before we leave.” Aisling wasn’t sure how she’d explain things to Stella, but she’d have to do something. Caradoc and Jones might not notice her behavior, but Stella would.
“I see. Anything new about your necklace?”
Aisling hadn’t realized her hand was even on it until Stella looked right at it. “No. I
forgot about it with the sinkhole, being annexed to Area 42, and now flying to England—for another sinkhole.” She looked at the pendant again in case it had changed. Nope. She dropped it back under her shirt. That was something to consider, she might need to watch what shirts she packed so it wasn’t noticeable that she was wearing it all the time.
Harlie had been matching Mott bite for bite, but he paused and tipped his head. “I’d almost forgotten about that as well. I’ll look into it before we leave.”
“I think we have to figure it’s connected to the building coming back in pieces, which means the Old Ones are connected to the building,” Caradoc said.
Stella came to Aisling’s side. “I didn’t get a good look before; might I?”
Aisling pulled it out from her shirt and held it out by the chain.
“Ooo, there’s a bit of a tingle, isn’t there? It’s okay little one, I’m a friend.” Stella patted the pendant and kept cooing to it.
“I don’t feel anything when I touch it. I didn’t even notice when that vallenian put it on me.”
Stella nodded. “Makes sense, whatever it is, it is tuned to you. I can’t tell what it is, nor what it’s supposed to do, but it is lovely.”
Harlie left his feeding frenzy and came over. “I’ve never seen anything like that. The triskele is well known and it’s used by many human and fey cultures. But the work itself is uncommonly delicate.” He peered closer. “There might be words on it.”
That caused Caradoc, Mott, and even Maeve to gather around, until Aisling finally pulled the pendant back.
“There’s no way to get it off, and I’m not having you all hovering over me for however long it will take to sort it out. After we finish eating, Caradoc can scan what he can of it with his machines and you can work off that.” The chain wasn’t that long, but hopefully he had some way of scanning items that didn’t involve a huge machine but would still keep the resonance of the actual pendant. She’d like to know what the pendant was and if there were words there, they definitely needed to know. Words often meant spells. But there was only so much room between her neck and the pendant.
Caradoc begrudgingly returned to his seat, but he drifted into his own thoughts, and the discussion of their upcoming trip swirled around him. Maeve had to call his name three times before he looked over. “What? Oh, the flight. We’re all in business class. British Flyways direct from LAX to Gatwick. I also reserved a car, but we may need to get two.”
“I’m flying into Heathrow. But will meet you wherever.” Stella nodded.
“I’m booked to Heathrow as well. Might be a few days before I can catch up with you. MI-6 was vague as usual,” Maeve said
“They are spies, after all,” Mott said.
“True, but it would be nice if they would let the person they are dragging back know what was going on.” Maeve turned to Stella. “How’d you get Grundog and Reg to agree to babysit? Trolls aren’t fond of big cities.”
Stella had tried a bit of everything and was working her way through it all. “They aren’t. But Grundog is more used to L.A. than most and Reg has had to spend a fair amount of time in London. Plus, I promised I’d share pertinent information with them. We don’t need to mention that to Reece or Jones—might cause them to have a conflict of interest.” The look on her face clearly said the issue would be more of them trying to slow her down than she getting in trouble by them.
Once they’d finished eating, Caradoc dragged them all to his room. He’d just brought his things back, so it took him a while to find what he was looking for.
“A vacuum?” Aisling took the seat he pointed to but sat away from the thing he was waving about.
“This is a top-of-the-line scanner; well, the tube for it.” Caradoc handed the vacuum-looking tube to Maeve, then moved more things around. “If they had just let me keep things like I had them.” He muttered to himself, then pulled out a small box, took the tube back, connected them and smiled at Aisling. “Now we’re ready. Hold out the pendant as far from yourself as you can.”
Aisling did as he asked but it still looked like a vacuum. She kept her second hand on the chain just in case. The chain shook as the tube passed over the pendant, but it didn’t pull it in. A screen on the small box came to life, and lines of data filled it.
“There are definitely words there.” Harlie watched the small screen while Caradoc kept his eye on the pendant itself. “And in a language that I don’t recognize. Or it could be that the words are too small.”
Aisling squirmed a bit. “The chain is getting warm.”
“Just a bit longer, there is a lot of data coming in.” Caradoc glanced to the intake box.
The back of Aisling’s neck was burning, just like a low sunburn, but not something she wanted to continue. “This is starting to hurt.” She jerked the pendant out of Caradoc’s hand. The chain cooled down immediately.
“Sorry about that, but it was getting worse. I don’t think it liked whatever you were doing to it.”
Stella peered at the pendant but didn’t touch it. “Wasn’t it all silver before? It’s got a bit of gold running through now.” She held up the pendant to verify.
“That wasn’t there before.” Aisling twisted the pendant to look at it. A faint line of gold shimmered throughout the knot work. “There’s more than just words...a design within the design of some sort?” She let the pendant drop and pulled her shirt over it. “Can we focus more on getting it off of me? Then you can all run as many tests as you’d like.”
“We need to figure out what it is before we try to take it off.” Harlie frowned at Caradoc. “Or try technology on it. Cursed jewelry is not unheard of. There are too many things that could be behind it.” With a nod, Harlie left and they heard him going upstairs.
“Well, that was interesting.” Stella nodded. “I’ll just show myself out. I’ll find you when we’re all over there. I believe the village of Noth is the destination?” She smiled and left.
“She must have gotten that intel from Reg.” Caradoc downloaded the data from the pendant scan. “I’m taking the data with me on the trip, but leaving a copy here for Mott. See if you can find anything out about it.”
Mott looked up from whatever he was currently working on. He looked distracted but he nodded. “Will do, boss. Can we get my stuff now? Those agents have been gone for three hours; I think we’re good.”
“But aren’t you concerned they planted bugs?” Maeve asked.
Mott looked like a child on naming day. “Oh, they did! I saw all of them. They’re deactivated now, but they won’t know it. I’ll reactivate them and give them to some avian friends to scatter for me.”
“You have bird friends?”
“Yup, a flock of wild parrots. Well, semi-wild. They like me so they help me out from time to time. Trust me, those bugs will be all over L.A. County by morning.” He whistled to himself as he left the room. Everyone else followed.
Aisling turned to go to her room and pack, but Maeve caught her arm. “I changed my mind. I know you too well and there’s no way you’re going to be able to keep your reactions to Reece normal. Not until you figure this out. Maybe you should take a later flight, wait a few days until Harlie figures out if he’s gone siren on you.”
Aisling ran her fingers through her hair. She’d been trying to ignore those same thoughts. “I don’t know that I can. I wanted to get involved in this case and now we are, but that means I have little say over where I’m going. My best bet is to keep acting like I’m pissed at his cutting me out—and avoiding him when possible. On another topic, did MI-6 give you any more details on Nix? Or whatever is out there pretending to be Nix?”
Maeve shook her head. “Like everything else, they’re being tight about it. You think it’s not him? Or are you just trying to keep me from freaking out that there are way more copies of that asshole roaming around than should be?”
“Both.” Aisling grinned. “I don’t want those to be clones, or copies, or in any way related to that basta
rd beyond looking like him.” She held up her hand. “I have no idea what that would be, but until proven otherwise, that’s what I’m hoping for.”
“Something harmless that just happens to look like one of the vilest bastards in the world? That’s not even close to normal.”
“We have a building that was pulled out of the ground and is now being randomly dropped in pieces. I’d say we left normal a while ago.”
Chapter Sixteen
Since there was no way to take care of anything right now, and Harlie wasn’t coming down to tell them he’d resolved anything either, Aisling packed and went to bed.
She’d just shut off her alarm after three attempts, when a feeling of soul-freezing cold flowed around her. It was early morning, dawn was coming through the curtains, yet she couldn’t see anyone in her room. The chill grew painful as her fingers and toes began to freeze. Never mind that they were tucked under her blankets.
But the worst was the feeling of her soul being frozen. She couldn’t move, couldn’t fight, and couldn’t tap into her magic. A deep blue glowing dagger appeared directly over her and she couldn’t even open her mouth to scream. The dagger came down to her throat and a flood of warmth shot out from the pendant. The light dagger exploded like a shattered glass and the invisible bonds controlling her vanished.
The scream she’d been trying to get out came out as well.
Maeve slammed the door open, followed closely by Harlie.
“What happened?” Maeve had a knife at the ready.
“There’s steam coming off your necklace.” Harlie didn’t have a weapon, but he did have his right hand up and slightly curled for a spell. He didn’t use magic much beyond his own odd inquiries, but Harlie was at least as powerful of a magic user as their mother. Most likely even more so.
Aisling reached and touched the pendant. Her fingers and toes weren’t frozen any more, but its radiant heat felt good. She looked around the floor as she swung out of bed, if there had been any shards of the dagger left, they were gone now. She kept her hand on the pendant and slowly walked around her room. Nothing.
An Uncommon Truth of Dying (Broken Veil Book 2) Page 12
